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A. LIi:TT]±lPl 

FROM 

ROBERT S. REEDER, ESQ., 

TO 

DR. STOUTON W. DENT, 

ox TUE 

::OLORED POPULATION 

SLAVERY; 

AND A 

SPEECH 

ON THE 

PROPOSITION TO CALL A CONVENTION, 

r^ A SINGLE ACT OF THE LEGISLATURE, TO CHANGE THE 
CONSTITUTION, 

At December Session, 1843»^_^ —-...^ 



PORT tobacco: 
PRINTED BY ELIJAH WELLS, 

1859, 






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Id- 



■n"' 



A LETTER, 



To Dn. Stouton W. Dext, — 

Dear Sir : — Your letter, with its postscript of inquiry, duly came 
to hand, and under the earliest inclination to do so, I proceed to 
reply to it. In the postscript to your letter, you propose this ques- 
tion : "WhicTi is the better and wiser proposition or measure of the 
two submitted to the Free Xegro Convention lately held in Baltimore — 
that of the majority, or of the minority?" This is a difficult question 
to determine, and one about which my mind wavers and doubts; and I 
must say, I entertain objections to each, and a strong and invinci- 
ble objection to that of the majority. A temporizing policy is as a 
general rule ever unsafe, and tends in almost every case to an ulti- 
mate aggravation of the evil which it professes to heal. 

You are aware, these propositions were not fully and freely dis- 
■cussed in the Convention, because of an unreasonable limitation of 
the time of each speaker and of the discussion ; and indeed against 
the force of reason and the spirit, and, I may add, the letter, of our 
institutions, by an abridgment of the freedom of speech. A philoso- 
phic wit has somewhere said, that limitation of time, is the safeguard 
and protection of fools. 

At the December session of the Legislature of this State, for eigh- 
teen hundred and forty-three and eighteen hundred and forty-five, by 
a Report on the Free Negroes of the State, at each session, I threw 
two bombshells of inquiry into the social and intellectual organiza- 
tion of this State; and we are now reaping the rich results, in a rapid 
approach to a full and complete understanding of the nature of this 
-question. 

The question is one of grave importance, not only as affecting our 
own immediate local interests, or indeed the interests directly of fully 
one-half this Union, in respect to the extent of area ; but in reality the 
ultimate organization and destiny, it may be, of the nations of the 
earth. 

But the question, so far as we are locally interested, is one of seri- 
ous import, and the proposition of the majority of the committee, if 



executed, is, iu my humble judgment, calculated to render it ulti- 
mately disastrous in its results. Under the execution of that propo- 
sition, if I rightly understand it, there must be established a super- 
visory power for the control and good government of the free negroes, 
and they are subject to this form of government to remain permanent- 
ly with us. This proposition, then, is subject to a twofold objection: 
first, that the free negro must from his permanent location and posi- 
tion increase ; while the slave, by continual and successive exporta- 
tion, from sale or otherwise, must decrease ; and in such a struggle, 
it cannot be doubted but that the permanent and increasing object 
will acquire the ultimate mastery ; and secondly, that it is organizing, 
tolerating, and indeed enforcing, a species of service which has ever 
been the active and unerring basis and instrument of despotism. But 
these views will be illustrated more fully as we advance. 

I greatly prefer, in principle, the position of the minority, but it 
is probable that at present and under the existing immature state of 
the public mind, it is impracticable; and particularly that feature 
which proposes a diffusion of slavery by confining each one to a limi- 
ted number. 

It may sound strange to you, when I tell you, that in this question 
is involved the question of a twofold form of society, which has divid- 
ed nations from time immemorial ; and must continue to divide them 
through all future time, each form producing its own peculiar results 
of good and evil, and each exerting its own peculiar influence in the 
progressive destiny and supremacy of nations. Thus viewed, then, 
this is, in reality, a question of vital importance, not only to ourselves, 
but shall I say to the human race ? The superior power of Christen- 
dom, through its various and peculiar agencies, has unlocked the 
door of exclusion among all nations, is dissipating the cloud of 
idolatrous superstition and ignorance which had rested so long like a 
mental nightmare upon those nations, and has let in, into the moral, 
social, intellectual and spiritual interior of them all, the bright, steady 
and benificent light and influence of our peculiar and humane civiliza- 
tion. This has produced at this time, as I think, a crisis in the con- 
ditional progress of the human race ; and the present juncture of 
events, does appear to me to portend, a universal revolution in the 
state of society ; and is it not a subject of grave consequence, what 
shall be the result, and indeed the permanent result, of such a revo- 
lution? The spirit of freedom is everywhere moving upon the face of 



the great deep — indeed, there is a mighty upheaving of the great 
deep itself. 

In the midst of this portentous revolution, doctrines, wild, extrava- 
gant, and I may add, chaotic, are not only entertained and expressed, 
but acted out delusively and to disorganizing results upon the subject 
of freedom. Men think, speak, and act as if freedom was a mere 
abstract being, to be .subject to the control and guidance of no legal 
or social restraint. On this subject perhaps a universaF error pre- 
vails. Freedom itself, abstractly considered, is an invisible element, 
like electricity — is the essence of the inner man ; but when we regard 
it practically, and indeed for practical utility, as we must and should, 
for the purposes of society, it becomes a thing visible, through its 
agencies, subject to the direction and control of a sensible rule of 
action ; and for its own preservation and perpetuity, it must be ruled 
by a strong disciplinary authority. 

The question, which is now the subject of inquiry, presents the 
subject of freedom and service relatively — in a twofold aspect : What 
is the best form of freedom, and what is the safest and best form of 
service ? Shall the freedom and the .service be an individuality or a 
nationality ? 

We can only determine or know the future by the past ; and by 
running our mind through the latter, we find that social organization, 
for its successful maintenance, has always rested on one of two prin- 
ciples — -voluntary or involuntary service ; and the consideration of the 
question, now the subject of inquiry with us, necessarily, and in a 
strong light, presents the examination of these two principles; and, 
indeed, a historical comparison of the relative excellence or superiority 
of either. Judging, then, the future by this law of the past, and, 
indeed, also, of the present, we know, as there never has been a period 
in the progress of man, when there was an absence of imperative 
service, so there never will be a period when there will be an absence 
of such service. Does or does not the Divine Being, the Governor 
of this Universe, govern that universe wholly by agencies'? Man is 
always the same — unchangeable, and what he, through his peculiar 
formation has wrought out in the past, he will again work out in the 
future, although working by different agencies. We now cultivate 
the earth as did the ancients, but we do not use the same agricultural 
implements in the form of their construction, although of the same 
material. There is but one safe mode of pror/rcsshe freedom and 



scrviee, 



and that consists essentially in federal individuality. Coeval 
with the existence and progress of the human race, service has been 
maintained, and existed in a twofold form — the voluntary and the 
involuntary. To effect the condition of the former, Europe at an 
early period after the commencement of the Christian era, or shortly 
after the strong establishment of Christianity, was subjected to the 
consequence of a great and entire revolution, and the voluntary was 
substituted in the stead of the involuntary, and hence the former became 
national— to be maintained by a strong standing army — at the point 
of the bayonet— by the controliug of thought— the suppression of the 
freedom of speech, and by the support and prosecution of periodical 
wars to uphold and perpetuate unmittigated despotism. A'oluntary 
service has thus far, by its experiment, exhibited the spectacle, all 
over the continent of Europe, of the most consumate and blasting 
slavery as the offspring of military authority. This latter condition 
of service has slsown, thus far, by its practical working, that it must 
subject each uuh'ruhial to one controliug military power and cannot 
tolerate individual control and service. 

Individual control has always commanded involuntary service and 
interest, and has ever been intimately allied with freedom as the legiti- 
mate offspring of the federal form of government, and has produced 
the highest and most ornate endowments moral and intellectual. Is 
it necessary that Europe, before she can be free, should return to in- 
dividual service and to the federal form of government? 

The authority of the minority report shows, as a fact, the interfer- 
ence of the ecclesiastical government with the civil institution of 
slavery and their attempt to abolish it. Inasmuch as he did not point 
out the origin and purpose of that interference, it is no more than 
proper that I should do so now : and this will bring us to an expla- 
nation of the sources and purpose of the great European revolution, 
and of the transition thereby from the individual to the national bond 
of service, and the establishment, as a consequence, of the most 
durable, bloody and blighting despotisms that have yet existed. For 
the purpose of showing the origin and mode of the revolution of which 
1 have spoken, I will quote from Balmes, a learned and eloquent 
writer of the Catholic Church, and who, I am informed, stands very 
high in that church, and is regarded deservedly as one of its brightest 
nriiauKMits. In his 15th chapter, on Slavery, he says : "No one now 
vonliircs to (Kiulit that the church exercised a powerful influence on 



the abolition of hlavory ; tlii.- is a truth too cIcmi- ;iud evident to be 
questioned." A little farther on, in speaking of the great number 
of slaves found in existence, at the advent of the church, he says : 
' * As their number vi^as everywhere so considerable, it is clear that 
it was quite impossible to preach freedom to them without setting 
the world on fire. Unhappily we have, in modern times, the means 
of forming a comparison, which, although on an infinitely smaller 
scale, will answer our purpose. In a colony where black slaves 
abound, who would venture to set them at liberty all at once ? Now 
how much are the difficulties increased, what colossal dimensions does 
not the danger assume, when you have to do, not with a colony, but 
with the v:urld." As 1 have already said, the power and influence 
which Christendom is now exerting on the condition and affairs of 
nations, a universal revolution must occur at no very distant day ; 
and it would seem from tlic conduct of the Protestant churches in this 
country, and from the language of this author, that through eccle- 
siastical influence, slavery is to be abolished all over the world ; and 
this great — not European— but universal revolution, is to be achieved 
under the pretence of freedom. But we will quote further from this 
learned and eloquent writer. In his IGth chapter, he says : " What 
requires to be shown is, that the result has been obtained by the doc- 
trines and conduct of the church, as with Catholics (although they 
know how to esteem at their just value the merit and greatness of 
each man) individuals, when the church is concerned, disappear." 
Again, in speaking of the slaves of antiquity, he says: " According 
to this opinion, slaves were a mean race, far below the dignity of free- 
men ; they were a race degraded by Jupiter himself, marked by a 
stamp of humiliation, and predestined to their state of subjection and 
debasement. A detestable doctrine, no doubt, and contradicted by 
the nature of man, by history and experience ; but which nevertheless 
reckoned distinguished men, among its defenders, and which we see 
proclaimed for ages, to the shame of humanity and the scandal of 
reason, until Christianity came to destroy it, by undertaking to vindi- 
cate the rights of man. Homer tells us that " Jupiter has deprived 
slaves of half the mind." It seems then that individual slavery was 
the product of Jupiter, peculiar to, or was to be regarded as exclu- 
sively peculiar to, the Jovian era; and that by its abolition under 
the Christian era, national slavery was to become the slavery of Christ 
and peculiar to the christian dispensation. Hun your mind over 



iMiropo aud ask and ascertain how uuicli freedom lias ever existed 
there under the force of the national bond of service. Again, he says : 
' ' The favor and protection which the church granted to slaves rapidly 
extended." And, in speaking of the influence the church exerted 
upon the subject of slavery, he says: "The council of Epaone 
ordained, that if a slave, guilty of any atrocious offence, takes refuge 
in a church, he shall be saved from corporeal punishment; but the 
master shall not be compelled to swear that he will not impose on 
him additional labor, or that he will not cut off his hair in order to 
make known his fault." " The ch;urch had therein no wish to protect 
crime or give unmerited indulgence ; her object was to check the 
caprice aud violence of masters; she did not wish to allow a man to 
suffer torture or death because such was the will of another." It 
would puzzle any man to determine from all this, what had become 
of the civil tribunals. He begins his 17th chapter, on this subject, 
in these words : "While improving the condition of slaves and as- 
similating it as much as possible to that of freemen, it was necessary 
not to forget the universal emancipation ; for it was not enough to 
ameliorate slavery, it was necessary to abolish it." I cannot make 
as extended quotations as I could wish for the illustration of my 
subject, without occupying too much space ; but the curious reader 
might find in the chapters of this writer on slavery, in his work on 
the comparison of Catholicity and Protestantism, a full and explicit 
description of the manner in which the great revolution, in the form 
of European society, was achieved — by the abolition of individual, 
and the substitution in its stead of the national bond of service. All 
this was done, under the pretence of giving freedom to man, and, 
I will ask, has the world yet witnessed as withering, blighting, 
blasting despotisms, as have 'grown up as the direct and legitimate 
consequence of this revolution ? 

The twofold condition of the population now under consideration, 
presents this question in this aspect of voluntary and involuntary 
service : the slave is the involuntary, the free negro the voluntary 
servant. What is the condition of each ? What fruits have these 
conditions yielded ? The free negro is subject to the control of the 
whole State, the slave is subject to the control of his master alone, 
under the protection of the State. Contrast the two conditions, and 
which presents the highest order of morality, industi-y, intelligence, 
'•onifort and case of life? Which ha? to the greatest extent iucrcasct^ 



jiiid ujulciplied the fruits of the earth and most coutributed to social 
and intellectual developement ? Individuality produces, as its re- 
sult, freedom — nationality produces despotism. 

In thus viewing tliis question, this proposition is to be kept steadi- 
ly in view and adhered to with the utmost strictness : that ice are 
alone to determine this question, its character, and ultimate disposi- 
tion, from the intinsic nature of our own institutions and principles 
of government, without the slightest regard to opinions which may be 
entertained or expressed beyond our own limits. Others may enter- 
tain their own peculiar views as to what should be our policy on the 
score of humanity or freedom, but we must judge and act decidedly, 
promptly and firmly for ourselves, with a view and for the purpose 
of relief, and permanent relief. Others may disregard the most 
solemn obligations of plighted faith, and assail us; while we, for 
our defence, must entrench ourselves behind our individual and 
Bocial rights and act without being influenced by the feelings of a 
false philanthropy, which is but the offspring of a blind and delud- 
ed fanaticism. We must act with fidelity, stern fidelity, to the in- 
tegrity, and inherent force of those institutions of governments which 
Providence has allotted to our protection ; while it will be for others, 
if they see fit to faithlessly assail us, and win for themselves in our 
future history, even to the extent of a half section of the Union, the 
character of thief. 

Exercising then oux^own judgment, as to what is for our own good 
and safety, what is the character and extent of the rights of the free 
negro population, and what power have wo over them, and what 
disposition shall be made of them ? The rights of the citizen, in the 
slave population, primarily antedated and was paramount to the Con- 
stitution, which guarantees protection, only, and not the control, of 
life, liberty and property. This guarantee, in the nature of a com- 
pact, is from all to each, and from each to all ; and whenever anything 
arises to impair the right in, and usefulness oi, property, the terms 
and elementary principles of the compact, demands its removal. The 
legislature, or rather the people, neither through the legislature, nor 
through their sovereign organ, a convention, ever guaranteed directly 
the privilege of manumission, unless it was by implication in pre- 
scribing the mode of evidencing manumissions. We know, at a very 
early period, they were expressly prohibited, and we find the reason 
assigned for both the prohibition and the mauumission in the case of 
2 



10 

Peter and als. is. Elliott's exe'rs, reported iu the 2d Harris and Mc- 
Ileury's Reports, where the owner of the slave declares, " that upon 
application being made to Mr. Erickson, to witness the deed, he at 
first refused, saying, that he could not think Mr. Eliott to be in his 
senses, as he had expressed great abhorence to the measure a few- 
days before, and conceived it to be highly injurious to the country. 
Upon this being communicated to Mr. Elliott, he in a fretful manner 
answered, that such changes could be done in an instant, signifying 
that it was an act of Divine Providence ; that his conscience was 
extreinchj uneasy, and that he could not rest tmtil he set his negroes 
freer 

This extract, and particularly the last sentence, illustrates the 
operative feeling which controlled individuals, for many centuries,, 
under the influence of ecclesiastical power and persuasion, to give 
their property, to a very large extent, to religious purposes ; and I 
think a little inquiry will inform us that manumissions and the 
abolition of slavery have originated from the same source. The 
acquisition of property, through religious influence, exerted at the 
hour of death, was for the purpose of wealth and power; and we 
shall be able to determine, that this world-wide abolition of slavery, 
is due to the same influence, exerted for the same purpose. This 
is written in illustration of the truth of the position assumed and 
asserted in the minority report, that the ecclesiastical gevernments were 
laboring to eflFect the abolition of slavery — an inquiry, into the purpose 
of which our friend, the author of the minority report, has not entered ; 
and it is now my object to show it. Under the force of this religious 
influence in Europe, as shown, the abolition of slavery was eS"ected ; 
and under the exclusive force of this influence, it has been largely 
eftected in this country — and so far has it progressed, that one of the 
churches, at least, has incorporated into its organization an ordinance 
in the nature of a law, that no member should own a slave. As 
I have said already, at an early period manumission was positively 
prohibited, and no direct authority has ever been given to exercise 
such a privilege ; and hence, manumission, through religious influence, 
has been exclusively an individual act, in merely permitting that 
which VI ?iS property to run at large, without the control of the in- 
dividual owner. This property, thus allowed to run at large, never 
acquired any higher right, by the manumission, than the privilege 
of going at large and working for itself; and this privilege arose 



11 

from Ae act of owners and not from a grant from the social power 
working through compact. Apart from the prohibition, to which I 
have already referred, this privilege, thus granted to property, was 
fooind at an early period of our social existence to work a grave evil 
upon the body politic and upon the interests among which it existed, 
as our legislative history fully attests, so that, from the very adoption 
of our Constitution, laws were restricting and controling it. It is a 
grave mistake to suppose that acts of Assembly have allowed manu- 
mission, it was the act of the individual owner of the property, and 
from its commencement to the present time, all the legislation upon 
the subject has been solely to establish police regulations to control 
•and regulate this property when let loose to run at large ; and, indeed, 
to hedge it in, and hem it in, and restrain it to any extent, that might 
be found necessary, to protect those interests among which it lived 
and moved and had its pernicious being./ Very shortly after the 
adoption of the first Constitutiou of the State, we find the legislature 
passing acts, not to authorize manumission, but imposing a penalty 
for the intrusion of this population into the State ; and this could 
have been done only on the ground, that the tendency of their pre- 
sence, was dangerous and pernicious. From that time to the present 
we find repeated acts passed by which the legislature declared the 
right, not only to limit and restrain them, but, with the Court of 
Appeals, practically pronounced them a vicious and dangerous popu- 
lation — disastrously affecting all our interests — agricultural, intellec- 
tual, moral and political ; and particularly acting most disastrously 
upon the interests of the owner in his slave. So specific and pointed 
was this last sense of the legislature, that an act was passed, as a 
police regulation, prohibiting owners and those having them in their 
employment and under their control, from permitting the slaves to 
go at large and work for themselves — manifestly wholly on the ground, 
that the example would work disorder, insubordination and an evil 
tendency in the institution of slavery. Correlative with this act, is 
another, which prohibits, under a severe penalty, the incitement of 
discontent among the slave population, whether by newspaper publi- 
cations or by pictorial representations. Their egress and regress 
from, and into the State, have been prohibited also, by repeated acts 
in various forms, and the violation of these acts was to be visited with 
penal consequences ; citizens are prohibited from hiring such as im- 
migrate ; and surely nothing but an imperative necessity could have 



12 

induced or justified the legislature in passing such acts to control tbe 
citizen in the exercise of these rights : and it must have beeu a strong 
case, to have justified 'the exercise of the principles of the compact of 
government, to thus control the social and elementary rights of the 
citizen. Acts have also been passed by which they were banished, 
at the moment they were manumitted, or so soon as they could be 
released from every claim of the creditor. All these acts have been 
recognized as constitutional, as growing out of the necessary exercise 
of the principles of the social compact, for the j)rotect ion of the social 
rights against those which were the offspring of individual grant ; and 
this action is based upon that clause of the Constitution, which guar- 
antees the protection of property, against all nuisance or hurt or injury 
or destruction ; and it does seem to me, that the whole of the slave- 
holding section must have demonstrative knowledge of the fact, that 
the presence of the free negro, is not only rapidly impairing the value 
and efficacy of the institution of slavery, but is positively and certainly 
achieving its destruction, j 

The policy of the people of the State, as repeatedly expressed 
through the legislature, would never have been adopted and executed 
as it has been in reference to this class of our population, unless it 
had been felt and known, that they were a nuisance, and effecting 
the most destructive consequences, to higher and stronger and more 
valuable interests and rights ; and such a policy could never have 
been constitutionally enforced upon them, unless they were regarded 
merely as property permitted to wander at large by the consent and 
act of the owner; and that they were not citizens, and possessed no 
more rights under the Constitution, or by virtue of the social compact, 
than they did before their manumission or the slave now does. It is 
trifling, and most egregious trifling, in an intelligent and free people 
to be thus acting upon a class of beings for their degradation, and 
without any practical or real benefit to any one. Our policy of 
legislation has been constantly to deprive them of privileges — to 
restrain them in the exercise of volition ; and we have thus added by 
each successive act to their degradation — while that degradation has 
continuously increased with an injurious effect upon those interests 
upon which they have exerted an influence, and in sight of which 
they have lived and are living in a state of idleness, immorality and 
thieving — so as indeed to exercise a much more powerful influence 
as a sensible, living representation, than any publication or pictorial 
s-cprespntation eould do. 



In order to insure improvement, the door of hope, beyond a present 
condition, must be open to the being who is the subject of that hope. 
All our legislation and the nature of our institutions, has, through 
the past and must through the future, effectually close this door to 
these people; and in the condition thus described, they are not 
■working only the certain destruction of the second most valuable 
species of property among us, but they exist as a settled and nox- 
ious miasmatic influence upon all our most valuable and progressive 
interests — moral, intellectual, social and agricultural. 

1 They can never rise to an equality with the citizen ; and that they 
are not the latter, has been repeatedly determined by the courts in 
both slaveholding and the non-slaveholding States. This equality, 
the nature of our institutions, the distinction of race certainly and 
unerringly stamped, and the destructive and impracticable effects of 
amalgamation, imperatively prohibit. They have been manumitted 
simply as property, permitted to go at large by the consent of their 
owner, without any rights under the Constitution, beyond those 
they possessed before manumission, or which the slave now posseses ; 
and under these circumstances, for them in this condition, a place and 
means have been provided for their trausportation and settlement ; 
and the place and means thus provided, they have refused, and still 
do refuse. This then is their condition — that they are property 
permitted to go at large by the owner, and in this condition, they 
certainly are to a demonstration, working the most serious conse- 
quences to the community in which they exist. In this condition, 
they are rapidly increasing ; while, with greater rapidity, the white 
populatioQ is deereasing ; and by their cheap labor and peculiar habits 
and situation, they are progressively degrading, and expelling from 
among us, the labor of the white laboring man. In this aspect of 
the case, would not the policy of a supervisory control, as proposed 
by the majority of the committee, work most disastrously upon the 
white labor of the State, when the latter will be required to compete 
with the labor of the free negro in an organized, directed, compulsory 
and increasing form ? I 

What then shall be done ? They have been told and know, and 
let them be again told and know, that ample means have been pro- 
vided for their transportation and colonization ; and if they will not 
go, so as to afford us the relief we demand as intelligent freemen, it is 
•our duty and an act of self preservation, that we shall return them to 



u 

the slavery from whence they came, ami thereby subject them to the 
force of that strict disciplinary system, which is indispensable to the 
efficient and beneficial maintenance of every institution. It would 
be well worthy of a strict inquiry into the policy and conduct of those 
appointed to transport and colonize, and ascertain the relative number 
of slaves and free negroes transported and settled. 

Vigilance, divine or infernal, is indispensable to permanent success 
in every pursuit, whether of individuals or nations, and whether that 
pursuit be for evil or for good, and this doctrine is peculiarly applica- 
ble to the maiutainance of the institution of slavery. Slavery, as it 
exists among us, is an institution, and as such it ought to be main- 
taied and enforced. Efficiency — usefulness— productiveness, and the 
consequences of the execution of these qualities, ought to be the primary 
and paramount object of consideration with us. To effect these con- 
sequences, two great characteristics of control are necessary to be 
possessed and exerted— vigilance to guard, and discipline to direct 
and execute. Vigilance is indeed that essential trait to be exerted 
for success in every pursuit, and the defence and preservation of every 
institution, and in nothing more than in the efficient enforcement of 
the purposes of the institution of slavery. Eternal vigilance is the 
price, the divine or infernal price, of freedom or despotism. Neither 
of these can be maintained, without its sleepless exercise ; and it is 
equally indispensable in every business and pursuit, governmental, 
social, domestic, agricultural, intellectual, moral and religious. 

Discipline is the next characteristic which should be most promi- 
nently applied, in the productive execution of this institution. With- 
out it, the institution is worthless and the source of annoyance and 
loss. With it, the institution becomes a pleasure and a profit to all 
who may have an ownership in it, and be interested and influenced 
by its presence and power. No literary institution could be maintain- 
ed without protecting and guarding the pursuit and progress of all who 
are interested in it ; and sleepless vigilance and intense labor are 
necessary to success in the aquisition of that knowledge which is the 
design of the literary institution ; and if a part of the teachers or of 
the taught, should be permitted to wander at large, without control, 
in a state of idleness, sloth and dissipation, destruction would be the 
certain result. So it is with the institution of slavery. 

An army cannot be maintained without discipline, and strict dis- 
cipline : and if a part of the officers and soldiers should wander about 



15 

at pleasure in a state of disorganizaticm and insubordination, all power 
of control is gone, the military organization is broke up, corruption, 
disorder and inefficiency becomes predominant ; and then disruption 
and defeat must be the sure, the unerring result. These proposi- 
tions are the demonstrations of truth, of eloquence and tried fact; 
and tlius it is with the institution of slavery. 

Such then is the light in which this institution of slavery is to be 
regarded — that it is an institution , and, as such, is to be subjected for 
repose, usefulness and productiveness, to a strict discipline and to a 
sleepless vigilance ; and in this aspect of the case, let one imagine, 
indeed, reason out, without the evidence of a tried, known and existing 
fact, what would be the effect of permitting, progressively permitting, 
a portion of the members of this institution to- go at large in a state 
of idleness, immorality, worthlessness, vice and disorganization, in 
full view of the other members, upon whom it is attempted to enforce 
the rules and laws of the institution. Is not this demonstration clear 
proof to the extent of unanimous condemnation ; and particularly so 
when the condition of the free negro is presenting such known and 
pernicious results ? 

A little inquiry and reflection will teach us, that in reference to the- 
subject of slavery, our society was and is, a great State institution. 
Prior to the adoption of the Constitution, all stood upon terms of a 
natural and social equality in their rights to property, and the negro- 
slave was then, and was treated as, property ; and the adoption of that 
instrument worked no change in the character and condition of these 
rights. It only confirmed them, by simply, but unqualifiedly, and- 
without limit, guaranteeing their protection. In the protection-, 
thus guaranteed, of their rights, all stood upon an equality, and the- 
compact of guarantee, of all to each, and of each to all, was that 
there should be no injury, hurt, or nuisance to these rights. Bui 
this compact has not been observed — a portion of the parties to it, 
have permitted their property to go at large, without any restraint, 
(except such as the whole people have imposed), to not only the hurt, 
but to the ultimate destruction of the whole of the slave property ; 
and this is done in palpable violation of the terms of the compact, 
and to the effect of the dissolution and subversion of the institution 
to which the compact guarantees protection. 

I will here briefly advert to a doctrine which has become most 
perniciously popular, and which, in my opinion, if not arrested and 



16 

corrected, is destined to work the destractiou of unr iu.'ititutiuijs of 
governnieut. Tliis doctrine is, that the majority, iu the exercise of 
an unrestrained will, has a right to do as it pleases ; and consequent- 
ly, that whenever a majnritij of the people of the State shall so deter- 
mine, slavery must cease to exist. As I have stated already, slavery 
was and \s property, and as such, its protection was guaranteed by the 
adoption of the Constitution as a compact; and if the majority ca^n, In 
the exercise of its will, decree and enforce its abolition, it can d'eeree 
and enforce the same result in reference to any other species of pro- 
perty: it could decree, and enforce the decree, that no man should 
own a horse, or an ox, or an ass, and discriminate and determine 
arbitrarily what should be treated and recognized as property. This 
is the doctrine of all the unrestrained despotisms of the earth ; and is 
not, or certainly should not be, the doctrine of a free peoy)le ; for if it 
is, man has made no revolution in the direction of freedom and gov- 
ernment, and in the nature of governmental organization. The truth 
is, the righ(s, and not the power, of the majority and minority ar& 
EQUAL. The rights o^ five are not greater than those of one citizen, 
and yet their power is, and when exercised to deprive the ove of his 
rights against his will and pleasure, a tyranny is established and en- 
forced ; and this latter would be the result whenever the majf>rity. in 
disregard of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection &i equal 
rights, shall abolish the rights of slavery. 

Suppose we of the slave-holding section are in a minority, yet the 
majority would have no rigid to deprive us of our property in our 
slaves; because the right of the minority, by the compact of the Con- 
stitution, is equal to that of the majority — even to the extent that each 
member of the compact could hold and maintain his rights against 
those of all the members — each being equal to all, and all being equal 
to each in rights, and not in power. Power is not right. 

The majority may have power, by virtue of its numerical strength, 
to abolish, by usurpation and wrong, the rights of the minority; but 
the force of numbers does not constitute right. The latter is tho 
result, under our system of compact, of agreement founded on nature, 
so as to give to each one the same rights with all the others. 

For the purpose of maintaining this state of our social and equal 
government, there is a constitutional guarantee of the protection only, 
and not the control, of property; and thus viewing the subject, we can 
as a right demand the passage of such laws as we shall deem necee- 



17 

Bary for the protection of the property we hold under the constitu- 
tional guarantee, against the vicious and destructive influence of that 
which has been permitted by the owner to go at large and without 
restraint. 

All this suggests another view of the question of the right to 
slavery and of the free negro population. It has been habitual from 
the foundation of the government, for the doctrine to be advocated, 
maintained and enforced, that the majority, in the exercise of its un- 
restrained will, can do as it pleases; and acting upon this false prin- 
ciple, the majority exerting its jwwer and not its legitimate right, 
through a legislative or conventional agency, has not only abolished 
slavery in many of the States, but has passed arbitrary laws prohibit- 
ing those who own them from carrying them within their limits for any 
purpose. This is, in my opinion, in direct and fatal conflict with the 
nature and power of free government. Every citizen in this country 
has a right to carry and own his property, of a kind of his own selec- 
tion, when and where he pleases, and a violation or deprivation of 
this right is the exercise, by the mere force of numbers, of a despotic 
and tyrannical authority. A majority can become a despot, and may 
wantonly and tyrannically exercise, under our form of free government, 
all the powers which a despot with an unrestrained authority can ex- 
ercise ; and such is the result, when a single citizen is prohibited from 
owning what property he pleases. Every government should be foun- 
ded on the principle of protection alone and not of control, and to ex- 
ercise and enforce the latter power is usurpation ; and the acquisition 
and possession and abandonment of property is, or should be, the ex- 
ercise exclusively of the individual privilege. 

This principle is equally applicable to the Territories. Every citi- 
zen has aright to go into them and settle with his property, of what- 
soever kind his own free will may select ; and it is the duty of govern- 
ment to protect and not control him in its enjoyment; and the people 
of a Territory have no right, either before or after the formation of a 
State government, to interfere with the rights of a single citizen in 
his property. To protect and not to control was the primitive element 
in the formation of all our governments ; and it is a sad and melan- 
choly state, when the majority shall assume the prerogative of becom- 
ing a despot and subverting the first and elementary principles of free 
government by the exercise of its own unrestrained will. 

Equally pernicious, indeed, destructive, is the effect, if the injury 



n 

or deprivation of rights is to be effected by individuals in letting their 
property wander at large ; and whenever such a state occurs, it is the 
bounden duty of the government, growing out of, and resting in, social 
compact, to interpose its power and remove the evil. 

The free negro population started as late as 1790 with the number 
of a few hundred, and now it is ninety thousand strong — strong for evil, 
morally, socially, intellectually, physically, spiritually, in agriculture, 
and in all those elements which are essential to the stability, integrity 
and progressive improvement of society. At the time we find this 
population to have increased most rapidly, and to an alarming extent — 
destructive and vicious extent — we find the white population to have 
diminished to a still greater extent. In some of the counties the white 
population has diminished nearly one-half or a third, while the free 
black has more than doubled or trebled ; and thus we have demonstra- 
ted that this property, which individuals have permitted to go at large, 
without any individual control, is undermining, dissolving and ex- 
pelling the rights and elements of the social compact. So that, in fact, 
we know from sensible and demonstrative results, virtue, industry, 
intelligence, manliness and progression are rapidly yielding to, and 
crumbling away before vice, sloth, ignorance, meanness and retrogres- 
sion. Under these circumstances, ought any one to hesitate for a mo- 
ment as to the course to be pursued? We are not to look beyond 
our own limits and our own institutions for the power, either of opinion 
or of government for our guidance and control ; but we are to rel}' 
wholly upon the power we ourselves possess, growing out of our rights, 
to bring us the relief we demand ; and knowing our condition and what 
that condition demands, we are to exercise our own power for our re- 
lief promptly, decidedly, firmly, and without any influence from feel- 
ings of a false humanity. 

In connection with all the views thus far expressed there is another 
principle, which it is necessary we should properly understand and 
enforce, for our protection in the peaceful enjoyment of our slave pro- 
perty. Our government is of a twofold organization, divided into the 
civil and ecclesiastical ; and under such an organization the former 
has an unlimited power to protect all the rights within its circumscrib- 
ed and defined limits. As a consequence from this, the latter has 
no right to exercise any power for protection ,; and thence certainly 
not for control ; for the exercise of the latter power by any govern- 
ment of any kind, is at all times an interference with the social right 



19 

and a usurpation. It is the duty thea of the ecclesiastical govern- 
ments, not only not to interfere "with the rights to property, in any 
form, but to preserve silence upon the question, and to confine itself 
exclusively to its legitimate constitutional and Biblical purpose and 
design of teaching spiritual morality alone. 

Thus viewing the ecclesiastical governments in connection with 
property, a fit occasion is offered for considering, more positively and 
directly, that European revolution of which we have spoken. But 
before we proceed to that subject it may be proper to advert briefly to 
man as he has existed in society in connection with service. Service, 
as shown by the undivided experience of the past, is indispensable to 
the organization, order and well being of society. This is demon- 
strated from the condition of that society from the very beginning, 
running through a period of more than five thousand years ; and what 
we find to have thus existed, universally, at all periods among men, 
individually and nationally, is the offspring of a Divine law — it is by 
Divine appointment; for it is said by a wise and logical mind, the 
powers that be, not their abuses, are ordained of God. The truth is, 
man in his progress from the beginning to the present time, like Ho- 
garth's line of beauty, has formed one continuous oscillating line; 
and the departure from any one simple condition, has grown out of the 
force of varied passion controlled by circumstances. The human race 
is perhaps as much a department of nature and as much under the 
control of the laws of the Deity, as the light, the air, the rains, the 
trees of the forest, or the vegetation of the earth ; and throughout its 
diversified and checkered career, exhibits as much the character and 
purpose of the Deity, as the air with its noxious miasmas and its 
desolating hurricanes, or the light that is casually and transiently ob- 
scured and intensified with gloom. God has, everywhere, among 
every people, under every from of government, proclaimed to us that 
service is a department in his great economy of nature, of his order of 
creation ; and this being the truth, as disclosed by all the revelations 
of the natural law, the grave question arises, what shall be the form — 
shall it be voluntary and national and despotic, or shall it be invol- 
untary, individual and federal and free ? 

This brings it back, as you must observe, to the original and main 
proposition of this letter : the source of the abolition of slavery and 
the universal revolution which was achieved throughout Europe in 
changing the primary and elementary bonds of society from individual 



20 

to national, from free to despotic. The primary antl elementary 
bonds of society, are the matrimonial, or that of husband and wife, the 
parental, or that of parent and child, and the servile, or that of master 
and servant; and out of the inherent and elementary action of these, 
there necessarily and legitimately results government. Each of these 
bonds, for its maintenance and execution, demands service and con- 
trol; and hence we find Paul declaring, that they must be preserved 
and enforced iu an individuality and in their primitive form ; and the 
instruction he gives on this subject is simple and positive : wives be 
under siihjection to your husbands, husbands love your wives, chil- 
dren obey your parents, parents rule your children with wisdom and 
affection, servants obey your masters, masters be kind to, and rule 
with wise discipline your servants ; and then follows another com- 
mand : that ye submit to the government under which you live ; and 
in these brief and simple instructions we have a description of what 
is true and legitimate government. It will be observed that there is 
here, and the same may be found everywhere in scriptural teaching, a 
recognition of the individuality bond as that which was right and pro- 
per. It was manifestly not the design of these teachers to break 
up these bonds, which they knew could not be done without disastrous 
consequences, but to purify them and correct their evils, by the law 
of persuasive discipline, instead of commanding and controling them 
by cruelty, hatred and force. These bonds, if I mistake not were 
founded in an individuality and not a nationality, at the time of the 
advent and establishment of Christianity in Europe; and in their char- 
acter and the basis of their existence a universal and unqualified revo- 
lution has been wrought by the power and influence of the church, or 
ecclesiastical government, which acquired the supremacy over that 
continent. The bond of marriage, of parentage, and of service were 
from the first — are all older than history; and all rested upon the bafeis 
of the involuntary and federal individuality of control until they were 
subjected to an entire revolution through ecclesiastical influence and 
usurpation. ^Yhat has been the effect of that revolution ? Wives 
have been subjected largely, indeed almost exclusively, to another in- 
fluence than that of the husband — children to another influence than 
that of the parent, and servants to the unqualified control of one blast- 
ing and blighting despotism ; and hence, slavery, all over the conti- 
nent of Europe, is writhing and groaning in national chains, until, 
if all its misery and suffering of one year, could be collected in one 



groan, it would convulse this globe. Christianity has thus been made 
to achieve, may I say, a disastrous revolution in the organization of 
society, when its principles were only designed, in reality, to amelio- 
rate the condition, and not to break up and revolutionize the bond of 
individual and federH^l service. 

Instead of that forcible control, which Paganism recognized and 
exerted as the law of government, Christianity, by its humanizing 
and charitable precepts, sought to substitute in its place the power 
and influence of persuasive control ; and this presents a fit occasion, to 
notice the proposition of the majority in relation to the government 
of thi.^ population. The evil spirits are said to care for, because they 
have an interest in, their own. Under individual control there is a 
mutual sympathy and kind feeling between master and servant, be- 
cause of personal association from youth to manhood ; and there is, 
necessarily exerted a kind care and watchful providence, because of in- 
terest and reciprocal dependence. This is the oiTsprieg of the indi- 
vidual and federal bond, which the pure heart and divine mind of 
the Author of Christianity, sought to molify and rightly direct by 
teaching and admonition ; but all such influence ceases when the bond 
of service becomes general and national, and must be maintained by 
force and with no admixture of kindness growing out of association 
or interest. This latter is the condition of the European voluntary 
service, where the bond of force is national, and unalleviated by any 
individual sympathy or interest ; and in this aspect of the case, what 
must become the condition of these people, but that of degradation 
and suffering under the control of a gerenal superintendant appointed 
by State authority? This would be enacting here, just the policy 
which has been enacted in Europe with such pernicious effects to in- 
dividual character and condition. 

It is said, in the quotations made from Catholic authority, that the 
design of the great revolution which was achieved, was to act upon 
the masses by a general authority, so as to subject every individual to 
the power of that authority ; and consequently the result was the over- 
throw of all individual and federal control, and the substitution in 
their place of the national and despotic control. Such was the revo- 
lution effected in Europe through the exercise of the ecclesiastical 
power and influence ; and what has been the resulting condition of 
this revolution ? Slavery has become national instead of individual, 
upheld and sustained by force alone : marriage has become largely na- 



tional instead of individual, and parentage occupies the same posi- 
tion ; and this condition was produced and established by the eccle- 
siastical power ; and there then followed two results, as a necessary 
and indispensable result for the maintenance of this condition : that 
the ecclesiastical became indissolubly united to the civil authority, 
and its establishment and its perpetuity demanded the organization and 
maintenance of an indispensible military authority ; and the grand 
result of the whole process of this wide-spread and continental revolu- 
tion, has been and is, the fiercest, most inexorable and withering, 
blighting, and blasting despotism the sun has yet gilded, or upon which 
Deity, enthroned in infinity, has yet frowned. 

Such has been the result of this extended revolution — of this break- 
ing up of the individual and federal, and the substitution in its stead, 
of the national and despotic bond, preserved and enforced by standing 
armies, unparalleled in the world's progress for their magnitude ; and 
we are told by Divine and unerring authority, that both wisdom, 
and -wickedness, are justified of (or indicate) their children ; and that 
all things, whether men, or the institutions of men, are to be tried 
by their fruits ; and the human rule of judgment is universal, that all 
intend the consequences of their deliberate acts. What then was in- 
tended by this great revolution ? The answer to this question is di- 
rect and unhesitating : usurpation, the suppression and destruction 
of individual rights — the taking the wife from under the control of 
the husband — the taking the child from under the control of the pa- 
rent, and the unqualified abolition of the individual relation of master 
and servant— so that, equally and alike, both the latter, on the same 
and equal platform of subjection, shall do equal service to the ecclesias- 
tical power and its individual rulers. 

It will be remarked that for the purpose of this revolution, the 
attack was first made on the servile bond ; and after this fortress 
of social freedom is stormed and taken, then follows a successive and 
successful attack upon the bonds of parent and child, and husband and 
wife, and this done, the work of despotism is complete. It would 
seem that the same policy has been adopted in this country, for the 
servile bond has been the first attacked, and in a large portion of this 
Union the attack has been successful, and there seem to be concentra- 
ted all the fanaticism, bigotry, intolerance and religious delusion of 
the universe ; and woman is especially victimized and controlled by 
religious influence and delusion ; for it may be pretty generally observ- 



ed that she, owing to her peculiar organization and temperament of 
delusive credulity, is ever the unwitting instrument of ecclesiastical 
usurpation. 

If this great European revolution has produced such results there, 
are we not to anticipate the same here, when the like means are re- 
sorted to; for like will produce like, and the same cause will ever beget 
the same effects? The greatest statesman of our revolutionary era, 
and who performed his part in that scene of freedom's struggle, well, 
and indeed with masterly ability, declared that he had understood and 
beheld with dismay, the certain and gigantic strides which the eccle- 
siastico-civil authority had made and was making to despotism, on 
the European continent ; and if he was now alive, and knew, and 
saw- what was enacting, in the exercise of the same instrumentalities 
in this country, would he not look on with equal dismay at the cer- 
tain and anticipated approach of a similar catastrophe with us ? So 
far has this process of revolution progressed with us, that some of the 
most refined and strongest bonds of union between the two great sec- 
tions, have been very nearly if not quite broken asunder ; and if the 
tales that are told be true, the Methodist church, following the uner- 
ring European example, has been the first to begin and propel this 
work of aggression and usurpation ; and nearly all the other churches, 
following this example, have marshalled themselves under her banner ; 
and under her lead, have engaged zealously in the maintenance and 
prosecution of this sinister and insidious combat against freedom's 
being and freedom's laws. 

We are told, upon good authority, that the fallen spirits, though 
grim, black and scowling of visage, because of the influence of the 
fall, can yet transform themselves into angels of light: — "Those 
male, these feminine : for spirits, when they please, can either sex as- 
sume, or both, so soft and uncompounded is their essence pure ; not 
tied or manacled with joint or limb, not founded on the brittle 
strength of bones, like cumbrous flesh ; but in what shape they choose, 
dilated or condensed, bright or obscure, can execute their airy pur- 
poses, and works of love or enmity fulfil." For centuries, indeed I do 
not know that I may not say, from the period when the church had 
acquired a strong and permanent organization, property, to a vast ex- 
tent, was extorted from the frightened victim on his deathbed, to enrich 
and energize ecclesiastical usurpation : and what horrors have been 
thrown around the death bed of the slave owner by these "spirits" 



24 

until mannmission was effected, under the subtle pretence that niana- 
mission was to smooth out the victim's pathway to heaven and secure 
the salvation of his soul ; and whenever this work of manumission has 
been permanently effected, it has been followed, as experience has 
thus far shown, by a fiendish and crushing despotism. We may thus 
form some correct idea of the true origin and purpose of the abolition 
of slavery by organized ecclesiastical power and not by the voluntary 
action of individuals. Government is designed to protect alone the rights 
and control of individuals, and as soon as it assumes the province of 
control, there ever follows disastrous results. Individuality is a techni- 
cal term of nature, and imports that the man shall think and act as he 
pleases under the protection of government, provided he does no wrong 
to the rights of his fellow man. 

"The hirer careth not for the hireling," is a maxim as old and as 
extensive as human society ; and this rule acts with imperative force 
•where the hired is subject to the control of all, and the fruits of his 
labor are extorted from him by force at the point of the bayonet or 
under the terror of the lash without a feeling of individual sympathy 
in his favor — and where, in such a condition, he cannot experience 
the impulsive kindness of woman's nature. Hence it is, that before the 
great revolution in Europe, the people could sometimes be called by 
the free term of citizen, and now they are only as subject ; or, indeed, 
are generally addressed and treated as my people, my subjects, or the 
SHEEP of MY pasture. 

These relative conditions of service — of the voluntary and involun- 
tary — were placed in striking contrast, with their peculiar results, 
among the States of antiquity. Side by side with the eastern govern- 
ments of Persia, Media, Babylonia and others resting on the national 
form of service, were placed those of Greece, Rome, the Ionian Pk,epub- 
lics and others of the individual and federal form of service ; and the 
former produced little but slavery, degradation and mere material and 
sensual splendor, of personal adornment and monumental structure ; 
while the latter have poured out in golden profusion the rich treasures 
of the intellect, progressively improving in their eifects and as endur- 
ing as the existence of man on this globe. The national or eastern 
form produced the fruits that perish, and are now only being exhum- 
ed from the earth in a fragmentary and useless shape, without adding 
anything to human culture; while the other has produced fruits that 
are as indistructiblc as the human intellect in its created condition ; 



and ■which have and will diC'use a moral and intellectual iufluence 
throughout the world's civilization, not only for the past, but for all 
future periods. The proudest and noblest poems, histories and ora- 
tions, which were the quickening and energizing pioneers of our civili- 
zation, were the exclusive offspring of the federal form ; and it is his- 
torically and literally true, that our present form of worship and know- 
ledge of the living God, with their expanding and expansive power for 
unlimited progress, had their origin and perfection under the action 
and influence of the same form. This worship and. this knowledge of 
the living Grod, in their active application through appropriate agen- 
cies, are breaking up the strongholds of idolatry everywhere, and 
progressively exfoliating the errors of the delusion and ignorance of 
the past. As an evidence of the truth of this last proposition, we 
might refer to the Jewish nation, which, dispersed and despised as it 
is, exists as the exulting conqueror of Christendom ; and three hun- 
dred years will not have elapsed before all the strongholds of the error 
and delusion of the universe will have been broken up, and this same 
degraded and dispersed nation will stand forth and proclaim, in exult- 
ant and trumpet tones, This is my great work ! And with us, for the 
purpose of working out these graind results, vre maintained, in all their 
native integrity, the three primary and elementary bonds of society. 
It has been charged upon our form of service that it has produced 
with us decay — morally, physically, intellectually and agriculturally. 
This is an error. If there has been decay in any or all these elements 
of our society, where the involuntary bond of service exists, it is the 
offspring of its inaproper use or application-; out of the working classes 
at every period the greatness, and particularly the inventive greatness 
of the earth, has come; and with us this class has been most signally 
and shamefully neglected. It has been left to toddle along in ignor- 
ance, without the help of those intellectual agencies, which can enable 
its members to rise to eminence by invention or discovery and in all 
the learned professions, and thus contribute to the inventive progress 
and improvement of that sectiori in which it has pleased Providence 
to cast its lot. Give to this class (in which is the real talent of our 
section) education and knowledge, and thereby quicken into active be- 
ing the element of invention, and our section would, on its face, soon 
wear the aspect of brightness, inteligence and progression, and not of 
ignorance and gloom and stagnation ; and for the accomplishment of 
this great purpose, give exclusively to the white man (who has alone 
4 



26 

sbowu a possession of the inventive faculty) all the meclumical and 
scientific pursuits, and then we should find attached to these pursuits 
all that elegance of beauty and sublimity which education, iuventiou 
and emulous skill can impart. 

The relative speed with which error and truth have made their 
respective conquests, would form a subject of interesting and instruc- 
tive inquiry. Electricity, when condensed, against its own general 
and conservative nature, will travel with inconceivable and destructive 
speed and power; and error, condensed, will travel booted and spurred 
half round this globe while truth is putting on her clothes. From the 
remnants of her decay, which furnish us with circumstantial evidence, 
we are decidedly impressed with the belief that the conquest and triumph 
of idolatry were speedy and almost resistless ; and the intellectual and 
moral efforts of master minds, for more than three thousand years, 
have not been able to undo what idolatry has achieved in a few centuries. 
By delusive agencies, through the period of a few centuries, the primi- 
tive bonds of society have been revolutionized and broken up by eccle- 
siastical power and influence, and sheer ruthless despotism has been the 
result ; and as a consequence it is more than probable that the human 
race, through the lapse of thousands of years, must fight their way 
back through an atmosphere of blood to freedom. ( I have thus briefly, 
in this tautological letter, in the way of suggestion, said all that I ought 
perhaps to say; and will, in conclusion, only remark that our future 
policy should be not to permit, further, manumission to remain among 
us ; and to furnish the means of removal and say to the free colored 
population of this State, if you are not gone by a day certain^ you 
must select masters and return to slavery, as a protection to and secu- 
rity for our interests, and your moral and social comfort and well 
being. Yours, respectfully, v 

ROBERT S. REEDER.J 



THE REFOKM QUESTION. 



[From the Port Tobacco Times.] 

Mr. Editor :— I send you a copy of the Speech delivered by Mr. TlEEbER. 
in the Legislature of Maryland, on the proposition to call a Convention to 
reform the Constitution. Those who, in their sightless zeal, are so earnestly 
the advocates of a Convention, act as if they thought reform was to be effect- 
ed in a moment. Eeform is esrsentially a plant of slow growth. There is 
■ndthing which so much requires time for its accomplishment. How conclu- 
sive an illustratioti is found in the system of Christianity. The very element 
of that system is reform, and it has been operating for more than eighteen 
hundred years, and yet how little, comparatively, has been done. Although 
reform is the element of that system, yet it is equally an element that it can 
only be created, or grown ; and in not one of its principles is the capacity to 
MAKE reform recognized. It attacks no form of government, it attacks no 
human institution, it simply scatters the seed of reformation, that they may 
^toxo up in the social mind just as the vegetation of the earth grows up from 
the soil. A constitution can no iTiore be made than religion. Whatever is 
made is perishable — endures but for a time, and consequently can neither 
grow nor expand. Such was the fate of all the constitutions of antiquity — 
that they lived only for a short time and then perished. They were all made ; 
and what is remarkable, they were made by one man, or a few men, who 
were appointed by assemblages of the people. Those assemblages were not 
perhaps called conventions, but they were as effectually so as if they had 
been called by that name. If with us a convention of the delegates of the 
people is called, a few only of the most talented will perform all the work, 
while the rest will be mere passive agents or spectators. It is thus that the 
constitution, being, as among the ancients, only the offspring of intellectual 
action, can never become identified with the popular mind. Darkness can- 
not comprehend the light ; and these constitutions being constantly the fruits 
•of the intellectual action of a learned class, through a conventional process, 
must ultimately establish an aristocracy, as among the States of antiquity, 
•and then the destruction of liberty must follow. 

A constitution cannot be made. It must cjroio up in the social mind just 
as the vegetation of the earth grows up from the soil. If made, it perishes — 
if grown, it is eternal. Man is gifted with the f;\culty of making and crcat- 



28 

ing. 'J1ie latter precedes tlie former ; and the exercise of the creative faculty 
must be the source of growth. Let your conventions mcke as many consti- 
tutions as they please, and in a short time they will perish. Is there not 
proof of this in the fact, that those constitutions which were made only a few 
years ago, or, in the language of the sightless beings of the day, "reformed," 
are now to be made, or reformed, again? How great is the folly of man! 
How little does he profit by experience ! Of the thousands and tens of thou- 
sands of governments that were formed among the ancients, upon made con- 
stitutions, how few exist ! They are all gone. ISTot one lives even to tell 
the lamentable story ; and there are only a few of their remains scattered 
here and there to denote they once lived. The secret of the destruction of 
governments for almost six thousand years, is unknown to man — and yet it 
is the simplest thing under the sua. A SUBSCRIBER. 



SPEECH OF ROBERT S. REEDER, ESQ., OF CHARLES 
COUNTY, ON THE PROPOSITION TO CALL A CON- 
VENTION TO REFORM THE CONSTITUTION.— Deliverei> 

IN THE House of Delegates of Maf.yland, in February, 1846. 



The cjuestion now before us, Mr. Chairman, is one of the gravest 
character. Upon its issue will depend the liberty, not only of our own 
State, and it may be ultimately of the United States, but indeed the 
hope of human liberty throughout the earth. 

Should the doctrines now advocated, to call a Convention by a sin- 
gle act of the Legislature, by the force of the uncontrolled will of the 
majority and contrary to any provision to be found in the Constitution, 
and consequently against the distinct process prescribed in that instru- 
ment prevail, it will perfect a return to that structure of government, 
which has in all ages proved ineffectual for the preservation of the 
liberties of the human race. Government has been a vexed and un- 
settled question at all periods; it was among the ancients a question 
of as great doubt and uncertainty as the question of religion. Specu- 
lations with regard to the true character of the Deity, filled all the 
States of antiquity. And government, among them all, was equally 
a subject of doubt and uncertainty. Among the ancients they were 
formed by casualty, and by the same means were they overthrown ; 
•and no proof, more conclusive of their erroneous structure, could be 
adduced, than that they have all disappeared and there remains not a 
remnant of their former existence. 



29 

Nor lias this doubt and uncertainty, as to tlie true character of gov- 
ernment, confined itself alone to antiquity. It has been equally an 
unsettled question in modern Europe. We live under one essentially 
diflferent from any that has appeared before it, and it is eminently 
adapted to the preservation and perfection of human liberty. If we 
steadily adhere to it as it is now constructed, one hundred years will 
not have closed before the peculiar liberty of America will have spread 
itself over the earth. But if the doctrines now advocated should suc- 
ceed, we at once return to that structure of government which pro- 
vailed among all the nations which have preceded us; and then in the 
stead of living under one, which it is our pride and our boast to call 
different from all others, it will become identical with all those which 
have heretofore failed to preserve liberty and insure the perpetuity of 
the institutions of men. It is more than probable, and indeed from 
■every circumstance, 1 might say certain, that ours is the best experi- 
ment of a free government that will be made ; and for the purpose of 
its preservation and perfection, it is necessary it should be rightly 
understood and duly administered. 

Instances have been cited where individuals, residing in the western 
part of our State, have advocated the call of a Convention according 
to the mode prescribed in the Bill before this House. It is sufficient 
to say in reply to this, that that section of our State has been the reci- 
pient of nearly all, if not quite all, the bounties of government ; and 
it may not be amiss to say, if these instances, thus cited for the call of 
a Convention, are made on the ground that the Legislature possesses 
an unqualified power to call a Convention, it may be, the authors do 
not understand what they are doing. 

It has been said, that if one citizen in our State possesses the right 
to prevent a change of our Constitution, except by the mode prescrib- 
ed in that instrument, then indeed do we live under a despotism as 
intolerable as that of Russia. Such a declaration indicates an entire 
misapprehension, I might say ignorance, of the true nature of our 
government ; and it but shows that the most intelligent among us have 
yet much to learn of the character of our institutions. So far from a 
resemblance there is an exact dissimilarity in the two cases. Under 
the Russian government, the action of one man, where there exists 
no Constitution, produces a despotism, while under our government 
the action of one man, by force of the compact of which the Con- 
stitution is the evidence, preserves and maintains the liberty of 



30 

not only himself, but of all equally and alike. This of itself con- 
stitutes a distinction as palpable as the difference between light 
and darkness. This it is which constitutes the distinct difference 
and true beauty of our government, and is that element which 
alone renders it different from all that have preceded it ; and I will 
say to those who are now opposed to me on this question, that if 
they shall abandon this great principle, which is their most precious 
jewel, let them not complain hereafter that it has become the proper- 
ty of another. 

In order rightly to understand the structure of our government, it 
is neccssari) that we should advert briefly to the structure of that of 
England. Indeed a brief statement of the historical pi'Ogress of our 
own, will constitute perhaps the very best description of its right 
structure and renders it easily intelligible. The English government 
is formed by a contract between the King of the one part and the 
People of the other part — the king and the people are the contracting 
parties. Our government is formed by a compact hetween the people 
themselves. Contracts or compacts bind between and recognize an 
equality of parties — hence the structure of the English government 
should recognize an equality between the king and people as the con- 
tracting parties. Our government recognizes equality between the 
people themselves — each individual citizen giving his distinct consent 
to the terms of the contract or compact. From this then results an 
essential difference between the two governments, and consequently 
what would prosper in one might be destructive in the other. The 
structure of the English government does not make the king the ser- 
vant, agent or trustee of the people, but their equal. As distinguish- 
ed from this, the hond, in our country, between the people and all 
those employed by them, is a hond of service and not the bond of a 
contract on terras of equality. I have thus stated these propositions 
with much repetition of language, because my wish is to make myself 
clearly understood ; and I will now proceed to make good my propo- 
.sitions. 

It is needless to run through the entire history of the English gov- 
ernment, and I shall content myself with beginning with the Magna 
Charta of King John. It is, I presume, known by all, that prior, 
and, indeed, subsequently, to the adoption of that instrument, great 
and severe contests were maintained by the English people in defence 
of their rights, against the asserted assumption, by the king, of a 



divine aud absolute power. Such a coutest brought Charles I to the 
block and expelled James II from the throne. Even John is said to 
have died of grief because the signature of Magna Charta was wrung 
from him by force and against his consent. Before that object was 
effected there was a long and fierce contest. Magna Charta was signed 
in a meadow through which ran a stream — and hence, historically, it 
is said to have been signed at Running Mead. 

Compacts or contracts bind hetiocen ; and for the purpose of being 
clearly fortified on this subject, I will give the definition which is re- 
ceived among men. Judge Story says, "compact in contracts, in its 
more general sense, signifies an agreement, in its strictest sense, it 
imports a contract k^^ceeji parties, which creates obligations and rights 
capable of being enforced, and contemplated as such between the par- 
ties, in their distinct aud independent characters." In order to ascer- 
tain the character of the English government, let us examine the 
terras of Magna Charta. Its commencement is in these words: — 
"John, by the Grace of God, King England, Lord of Ireland, Duke 

of Normandy and Aquitaiu aud of Anjou, to his archbishops, 

bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciaries, foresters, sheriffs, govern- 
ors, oflacers, and to all bailiffs and faithful subjects, greeting. Know 
ye that we, in the presence of God and for the salvation of our own 
souls, and of the souls of all our ancestors and of our heirs, to the 
honor of God and the exaltation of the Holy Church and amendment 
of our kingdom, by the counsel of our venerable fathers, I have iu 
the first place granted to God, and by this our present charter have 
confirmed for us and our heirs forever: 1st. That the English Church 
shall be free, and shall have her whole rights and her liberties invio- 
lable;" and then follows another grant in these words: "2d. We 
(that is John his heirs and successors) have also granted to all the 
freemen of our kingdom, for us and for our heirs forever, all the un- 
der- written liberties, to be enjoyed and held by them and by their 
heirs from us and from our heirs." The covenant for the faithful 
performance of the conditions of the great charter, from which I have 
just quoted, is in these words: "This is the covenant made between 
our Lord John, King of England, on the one part, and Robert Tiby- 
walber and others, and the earls and barons and freemen of the whole 
kingdom, on the other part ^ It is to be observed from this language 
how much, very much, John undertakes to perform. He first saves 
the souls of the ancestors of both the contracting parties and then the 



32 

souls of their own descendaDts. He then grants to God that the 
English Church shall be free and shall have her whole rights. He 
then grants all the underwritten liberties to the freemen of England ; 
and it may be well to observe here that the language contained in 
these cjuotations, puts the English people rather in a condition of 
agents, trustees or servants, or creatures, than of the creator or sove- 
reign power. The covenant then proceeds to declare what is the 
character of the great charter, by declaring that there is a covenant 
between the king and the freemen. It is also a matter of special curi- 
osity that the letter T, the first letter of the word "This," with which 
the covenant commences, is printed in pictorial and large type, and 
has Jesus Christ nailed to it as if to a cross. 

Such was the character of the contract which was executed heticeen 
John and the people of England. It is known that Charles I was 
compelled to give his consent to a somewhat similar contract, and 
that he violated it through the influence of the Queen and other evil 
counsellors, and the result was a fierce contest between king and peo- 
ple, by which he was brought to the block. It is also historically 
known, that James II violated the contract between himself and 
the English people, and he was thence compelled to abdicate the 
throne. The language used on that occasion, in reference to this 
subject, by the House of Commons, with the concurrence of the House 
of Lords, is conclusive of this proposition. In relation to this subject 
I will quote a portion of the language of the historian, and also the 
resolution which was adopted as expressive of the abdication of the 
throne by James. It is thus : "The convention Parliament met on 
the 22d of January, and upon motion in the House of Commons, it 
was determined nem. con. that on the following morning they should 
take into consideration the condition and state of the nation. Accord- 
ingly, on the 28th, the House resolved itself into a commitliee of the 
whole house for the above purpose, and the following resolution was 
agreed upon : 

"Resolved, That king James, the second, having endeavored to subvert the 
constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between the 
kinr/ and people, and by the advice of the priests and other wicked persons, 
liave violated the fundamental laws, and having -withdrawn himself out of 
this kingdom, luis abdicated the government, and the throne is thereby va- 
cant." 

Here, then, in this resolution, passed on the 28th of January, 1689, 

is a positive and distinct declaration of the character of the English 

government — that it consists of a contmct between the Idng and the 



Englifsh people, and tluit contract is declared to be the fnndanicntal 
or foundation law. That which is a coutract in the Euglitih govern- 
ment, between the king and people, as two contracting parties, and 
is the fundamental law upon which rests the structure of the English 
government, is, in our government, a compact or contract between 
the people themselves as the fundamental law — -each one of the peo- 
ple, individually, giving his consent to tlic terms of the contract or 
compact, of which our State Coustitulion is the evidence and contains 
the terms. From this distinction, as I have already said, follows an 
important and valuable inference, distinctly recognized in our govern- 
ment by those who have a proper knowledge of its structure : that 
with us all officers employed by the people are agents, trustees or 
servants, and held to their rospuusibility by the bond of service. On 
the contrary, in the English constitution, the king is a contracting 
party with the people, and conse(juently, is impliedly their e(|ual. 
There is another important view in which this question is to be 
regarded. The throne was by this resolution declared to be abdicated. 
It could not have been, if the king had been a creature, and conse- 
quently elected and clothed with a delegated authority or the authority 
of an agent. Under our government, the fact of appointment or of 
election, and that annually, makes the government a trust or agency. 
And, further, if all the officers of our State where hereditary in their 
official rights, and such rights were obtained by inheritance, they 
would not receive their being by creation from tlie people, but would 
claim and hold them by a separate, distinct and elementary origin. 
At one time, the king asserted, anil it was to a great extent believed, 
he had his rights by Divine appointment, although John, in the great 
charter, assumed the special care and protection of his God. Whether 
the people of England have yet positively determined from what source 
the king derives his rights, I do not know ; but of one thing I am fully 
certain, that if we hold fast to what we now possess, one hundred 
years will not have elapsed, before the great discovery will have been 
made. 

Having thus shown the fundamental structure of the English 
government, I will now proceed briefly to trace the historical progress 
of our own government, in order to ascertain by what process wo came 
into the possession of it as it now exists. For the purpose of tracing 
it distinctly, I will begin with the charter granted to Lord Baltimore 
by King Charles, in the year sixteen hundred au.l Llutty-two, and by 
5 



34 

virtue of which our State was settled. It begins thus : "Charles, by 
the Grace of God, of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, King, 
Defender of the Faith, and to all whom these presents shall come, 
greeting ;" and the commencement of the third section in these words : 
"Know ye, therefore, that we, (Charles, his heirs and successors,) 
encouraging with our royal favor the pious and noble purpose of the 
aforesaid Baron of Baltimore, of our special grace, certain knowledge 
and mere motion, have given, granted, and confirmed, and by this our 
present charter, for us, our heirs and successors, do give, grant and 
confirm unto the aforesaid Cecilius, now Baron of Baltimore, his heirs 
and assigns, all that part of the peninsula or chersonese, lying in the 
parts of America, &c., &c." The sixth section of that charter is in 
these words : "Now that the aforesaid region, thus by us granted and 
described, may be eminently distinguished above the regions of that 
territory and decorated with more ample titles, know ye that we, of 
our special grace, certain knowledge and mere motion, have thought 
fit that the said region and islands be created into a Province as out 
of the 2)lenitude of our Royal poicer and prerogative, we do for us, 
our heirs and successors, erect and incorporate the same into a Pro- 
vince and nominate the same Maryland, by which name we WILL 
that it shall from henceforth be called." This brought our State into 
being, and it is willed into such being by the king, as though he 
was endowed with Divine authority. He assumes also the prerogative 
of decorating with titles this Province which he willed into being; and 
such is the high attribute of Heaven's King, to create and decorate the 
creation with titles. I will make one other quotation from the seventh 
section, which is thus: "And for as much as we have above made 
and ordained the aforesaid now Baron of Baltimore, the true lord and 
proprietor of the above Province aforesaid, know ye therefore further, 
that we, for us, our heirs and successors, do grant unto the now Baron, 
(in whose fidelity, prudence, justice and provident circumspection of 
mind we repose the greatest confidence,) to his heirs, for the good and 
happy government of the said Province, in free, full and alsolute 
poiccr, by the tenor of these presents, to ordain, make and enact, of 
what kind soever, according to their sound discretion, whether relat- 
ing to the public state of the said Province or the private utility of 
individuals, of and with the advice, assent and approbation of the free- 
men of the same Province, of the greater part of their delegates or 
deputies, whom we WILL, shall be called together for the framing of 



35 

laws, when and as often as need shall require, by the aforesaid now 
Baron of Baltimore and his heirs, and in the form which shall seem 
best to him or them." 

In this we have the origin of Maryland. It was the fruit of the 
mere motion, the offspring of the plenitude of the royal power of the 
King, the State is willed into being, and by the exercise of the same 
will the right to make laws, to appoint delegates or agents, and to do 
indeed nearly all that appertains to the being of vitality, is given ; and 
this constitutes perhaps but a continuance of the principles of the great 
charter, with a rather greater assumption of power by the king. It 
might perhaps be said that the charter of Maryland created a contract 
between the king and colonists; but it is manifest from its language, 
that the king first creates the Colony prior to the execution of the con- 
tract, if there was one executed. The same remark may rightly be 
aiade in relation to the great charter, notwithstanding it is the boast- 
ed bulwark of English freedom. Its language implies a creation, by 
the king, of the people, before the contract is entered into, for in the 
charter, John, in the plenitude of his omnipotence, grants all the 
"underwritten liberties," to the freemen. 

I will now pass forward to another era in the historical progress of 
our government; and it is with a design to meet the precedents cited 
by the gentleman from Frederick, (Mr. Lowe,) to show that the Legis- 
lature has at a previous period, by a single act, called a Convention 
of the people to adopt the Federal Constitution. 

It is said, and, for the purpose of investigating this important point, 
I freely admit, that the Convention to adopt the Federal Constitution 
was called after the adoption of our State Constitution; that several 
provisions were stricken from the State Constitution that they might 
give place to provisions of the Federal Constitution ; that the call was 
efiected by a single resolution and without any change of the State 
Constitution in its amending article for that purpose ; and hence the 
inference is claimed, that if the inherent sovereignty could thus call 
a Convention by a single act, to adopt the Federal Constitution, can- 
not the same process be legitimately observed to alter the present 
Constitution of the State or adopt a new one ? 1 will remark in refer- 
ence to this branch of my subject, before I proceed to show that the 
calling of a Convention by a single resolution was legitimate for the 
adoption of the Federal Constitution, that authorities from England 
are not to be received iu relation to the structure of our government, 



8:0 

;nid particularly in relation to the character nu'l extent of its powers. 
I\Tr. Jeffeksox himself, like a wise man, has laid down as a fundamen- 
tal rule, that those who framed an instrument of writing are the au- 
thorized interpreters, and in this case I shall claim to use as authority 
the opinion of those who were the authors of our governments. State 
and Federal. No man is more disposed than myself to receive, and 
most implicitly, the opinion and practice of those to whom we are in- 
debted, not only for our free institutions, but indeed for our very ex- 
istence. I believe our forefathers to have been as effectually inspired 
in the political, as the holy seers and prophets of old time were in the 
divine world ; and except for their success, as instruments in the hands 
of God in achieving our independence and establishing our govern- 
ment, it is more than probable our parents would not have known 
each other and we should not now have been here. I am then will- 
ing to rely upon any precedents drawn from sucb a source, if it had 
its origin in circumstances similar to those which now exist, but then 
it is but a poor and inconclusive mode of reasoning, to adduce prece- 
dents without understanding them, if understanding them without 
exploring the circumstance of their origin, and whether there were not 
reasons of justification for their use at the time they had their being, 
bearing no resemblence to those which now exist. Men may quote 
precedents without understanding them, and of such numbers as to 
become mystified in their complexity and doubtful signification. Such 
conduct is like that of children when they discover something new, 
with which they are greatly delighted, without knowing its nature 
or worth. 

The resolutions upon which a reliance is so triumphantly placed, to 
show the power of the Legislature to call a Convention by a single 
act, are in these words : 

"By the House of Delegates, November 27th, 1787 — Resolved, ncm con: 
That it be recommended to the people of this State to submit the proceed- 
ings of the Federal Constitution, transmitted to the General Assembl}', 
through the medium of Congress, to a Couveutiou of the people for their full 
and free investigation and decision. 

"Ilesolvcd, That it be recommended to such of the iuliabitants of this State 
as arc entitled to vote for Delegates to the General Assembly to meet in their 
respective couutics, the city of Annapolis and Baltimore town, on the first 
Monda}'' in April next, at the several places fixed by law for holding the 
annual elections, to choose four persons for each county, two for the city of 
Annapolis, and two for Baltimore town, to serve in the State Convention, 
for the purpose of taking under consideration the proposed plan of govern- 
ment for the United States ; and that the said elcctious be conducted agree- 
ably to the mode and conformably with the rules and regulations prescribed 
for electing members to serve in the House of Delegates. 



'"Piesnlred, Tlint tlie Dolc^gatos to be olecteu to servo in the State Coiiven- 
liou shcall, at the time ol' their election, bo citizeiis of the State, and actually 
residing therein for three years next preceding the election, residents of the 
county wliere they shall be elected twelve montlis next preceding the elec- 
tion and be of twenty-one years of age. 

"Iksolved, That tiie Sheriff of the respective counties, the Mayor, Recorder 
and Aldermen, or any three of them, in the city of Annapolis, Commission- 
■ers of Baltimore town, or any three of them, shall, and they are hereby re- 
quired to give immediate notice by advertisement to the people of the coun- 
ties, the ci'ty of Annapohs and Baltimore town, of the time, place and pur- 
pose of the election as aforesaid. 

"-Besolced, That the persons so elected to serve in th<3said Convention, do 
■assemble on IMonday, tlie twenty-first of April next, at the city of AnnajJO- 
lis, and may adjourn from day to day as occasion may rcquiic. ;iiid ihat the 
same Delegates," so assembled, do then and there take intn rii..~i In aioii the 
afoi'c^said Constitution, and if approved l)y them or a niaJMii! y v( lliv m, final- 
3y to ratify the same in behalf and dh the part oi i'ii> >[:Ac. Liud make re- 
|)ort thereof to the L'nitcd States in Cmgress assci'ii.';. i!. 

"Hcsolced. That the Delegates to be elected for Baltimore town, Ije residents 
-of the said town, and the Delegates to be elected for Baltimore county be 
residents of th<3 said county, oiit of the limits of Baltimore town. 

"By order, William Hakwood, Clerk. 

"By the Senate, December the 1st, 1787. Eoad and assented to. 

"By arder, J- DoKSEY, Clerk." 

In order rightly to understand how the process, ia compliance with 
the above resolutions, was legitimate, it is necessary to show to what 
our State Constitution owes its existence. On the 4th of July, 1770, 
the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Prior to the adoption 
of that declaration we know that the Colonies admitted themselves to 
be subject to the British crown ; and indeed until a few days previous 
to its adoption, no serious opinion had been expressed or entertxained 
of a separation. Perhaps it was about the 10th of June preceding its 
adoption, that Eiciiard H. Lke, of Virginia, I think, introduced a 
resolution into the Congress, declaring the Colonies to be free and 
independent, and all connection between them and the British crown 
to be totally dissolved. This resolution was not immediately acted 
upon. It produced the appointment of a committee, at the head of 
which was Mr. Jeffersox, to draft a Declaration of Independence. 
Prior to the adoptaon of the Declaration of Independence the Dele- 
gates in the General Congress entitled themselves "the Delegates ap- 
pointed by the good People of the Colonies ;" yet, allegiance was 
acknowledged. We all know that the Colonies used every means by 
remonstrance and petitions, to produce a reconciliation up to the peri- 
od of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, and the adop- 
tion of that instrument was an act of final separation forever. It 
sundered the bonds which linked the Colonies with the mother coun- 



3» 

try, and consequently every obligation, by force of the charters, was 
dissolved. The people of the Colonies were then made free — rested 
in a state of nature, and subject to but one organized authority by 
their consent, and that was the General Congress assembled, and act- 
ing by force of the Declaration of Independence, which then became 
the bond of union between the Colonies, and to it all the State Con- 
stitutions, the Articles of Confederation, and the Federal Constitution, 
owe their existence. It was the primary federal bond to which we 
are indebted for all our Constitutions, and consequently our existence 
as a free people. 

That clause, which in the Declaration of Independence, constituted 
the bond of union, is in these words : 

"We, therefore, the lleprcsentatives of the United States of America, in 
General Congress assembled, appealing to the yupreiue Judge of the world 
for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of 
the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these 
vnited Colonies are, and of right oiir/ht to be, free and independent States ; 
that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all 
political connexion between them and the State of Great Britain is, andouglit 
to be, totally dissolved; and that as free and independent States they have 
full jwwer to levy war, conclude peace, contract alHanccs, establish com- 
merce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of 
right do ; and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on 
the protection of Divine Brovidence, we mutally pledge to each other, our 
lives, owx fortunes , and our sacred honor." 

This constituted the first hond of union hetwecn the Colonies as in- 
dependent States. This bond was thus formed and executed by the 
force of a "jjledge," and to it all the State Constitutions are indebted 
for their existence, and consequently that of Maryland. It was on 
the 10th of August in the year 177G, that our State Constitution was 
adopted. Its origin was therefore of a date subsequent to that of the 
Declaration of Independence, and necessarily so, for the people of the 
Colonies were not free prior to that period to form a Constitution of 
their own. 

On the fifteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord, one 
thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven, "and in the second year 
of the independence of America," the Articles of Confederacy were 
agreed to, and on the ninth day of July, 1778, were finally agreed 
to; and although the old Congress, at the time of their adoption, were 
in session by force of the pledge, which, in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, was the bond of union, yet the members styled themselves 
"Delegates of the United States of America." The first section of 
that instrument is in these words : "The style of the confederacy 



39 

aliall be the United States of America ;" and a part of the third sec- 
tion is thus : "the said States hereby severally enter into a firm Icajue 
oi friendship with each other." 

Thus it will be seen that the Articles of Confederation, equally 
with our State Constitution, are indebted for their existence to the 
■"j'jZcfZi/e," which, in the Declaration of Independence, was the primary 
und parental bond of union between the States. The Articles of Con- 
federation were in fact but the expansion of the terms of the Declara- 
tion of Independence. 

Again : On the 17th day of September, in the year 1787, and in 
the twelfth year of the independence of the United States of America, 
the Federal Constitution was adopted, and it was but the expansion 
of the Articles of Confederation. The first and parental bond, which 
existed by virtue of the pledge contained in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, exercised its positive and creative right of enlarging its 
powers, by the adoption of the Articles of Confederation, and after- 
wards proceeded still further to exercise it by the adoption of the 
Federal Constitution, and thereby converted itself into a Constitutiou 
instead of a ledgue of friendship, and that Constitution to the extent 
of its terms, declares itself to be the supreme law of the land. 

In the year 1783, prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, 
we find Washington, in his usual sincere and unsophisticated manner, 
expressing his opinion of the character of the bond of union existing 
by virtue of the Articles of Confederation. It occurred in the other 
wing of this capitol, on the 2od of December, 1783. I will make a 
brief extract from that address, delivered when ho surrendered his 
military commission into the hands of the old Congress. It is thus : 

"Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty, and 
pleased with the opportnnity offered the United States of becoming a respect- 
able nation, I resign with satisfaction the appointment I accepted with dif- 
fidence — a diffidence in my abihties to accompHsh so arduous a task, which, 
however, was superceded by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the 
support of the supreme power of the Union, and tlie patronage of Heaven.'' 

This language of Washington — of the supreme power of the 
Union — is not only applicable from the period of the adoption of the 
Articles of Confederation, but during the whole period which inter- 
vened between the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, up to 
the moment of his surrender of his commission. During the whole 
of this latter period all the rights of sovereignty were exercised by the 
Congress of the Union. Armies were raised, money was collected 
and borrowed, ministers were appointed, treaties were negotiated and 



40 

foncIudcJ, nii.l ;ill tlie acts wore done which free and iiidepcnder>fe 
jiutions can (^f li.ulit Jo. Thus wc find, as early as 1783, Washing- 
ton' calling the bond of union the "i-:uprenie power of the Union."' 
And this langnage was used four years prior to the adoption of the 
Federal Conslitsition. I will now proceed to cite authorities more 
directly in point. Long before the Federal Convention met, there 
were resolutions passed by the Federal Congress, for the amendment 
auel enlargement of the Articles of Confederation. I cannot better 
quote them than in the language of Mr. Madison, the father of the 
Constitution and the greatest of constitutiouail lawyers. It is froui 
the fourteenth number of the Federalist : 

"The second point to be cxauiiwd is, wlictber the Convcniiou wrre ;vu- 
tborizcd to frame and ])r()p()se this mixed Constitution. 

"The ]iowcr.s of the Convention ought in strictness to bo d'eteiTnTired by a-n 
iiisiicctiou of the commission given to the memb«i;s Iry their respective con- 
istilueiils. As all of them, however, liad reference either to the recommen- 
dation from the meeting at Annapolis, in September, 1780, or to tliat from 
Congress, in February, 1787, it will be suflicientto refer to these particiibir acts. 
'■The act from Aimapjlis vcconmieuds tlic appointment of Connnissioners 
l,o l.ikc iiili. fi.i,/ul^'r:ilion the silualion of the United States; to devise sucb 
rurUicr piuvisioiis as slmll appear to them uccessa^ry to render the Constitu- 
tion of tlic Federal liovernmcui, iKlcquate to the exigencies of the United 
States in Congress assembled, as wlien agreed to by tliem, and afterwards- 
confirmed by the Legislature of every State, aviII effectually provide for the 
same." 

The recommendatory act of Congress is in the vfords follow iiig : 
'•Whereas, tliere is provision in tlic Articles of Con fed»;ration and perpetu- 
:il iHiiou for making aUeialinns (borein, l.)y the assent of a Congress of the 
United States and of the Legislatures of the- several b'tates; and wdicreas, 
(!xperience hath evinccil that there are defects' in the present confederacy; 
as a means to remedy, wbich several of the States, and particularly the State 
of New York, by express instructions to their Delegates in Congress, have 
suggested a Convention for the purpose expressed in the followiug resolu- 
tions ; and such Convention appearing to be the most favorable means of 
establishing in these States a firm national government, 

"Besvlred, That in the opinion of Congress, it is expedient that on the 
second Monday in May next, a Convention of Delegates, \yho shall have 
been appointed by the several States, be held at Philadelphia for the sole 
ami express purpose of recisiur/ the Articles of VonfcdcrafioH and reporting 
to Congress and the several Legislatures such alterations and provisions 
therein as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confimied by the States, 
render the Federal ConsVitution adeipiate to the exigencies of governmcBt 
and the preservation of the Union."' 

Such arc the resolutions for the call of a Federal Convention, and 
such is the commentary of Mr. Madison. But I will quote a little 
from this same number in reference to this same subject : 

'■The truth is that the great principles of the Constitution, proposed by 
the ('onvention, may be coohidrred less, as absolutely new, than as the ex- 
l•A^•su)N of principles which are found in the Articles of Confederation. The 



41 

misfortune under the latter system has been that these principles arc so 
feeljle and confined as to justify all 'the charges of inefliciency which have 
been urged against thera ; and to require a degree of enlargement, which 
gives to the new system the eifect of an entire transformation of the old." 

And he then proceeds further to say, in the same number, and in 
reference to the same subject — 

"They must have reflected, that in all great changes of establisheil gov- 
erumcuts, forms ought to give way to substance, that a rigid adherence in 
sucli cases to the former, would render nominal and nugatory the transcen- 
dent and precious right of the people to 'aboHsh or alter their governments 
as to them shall seem most likely tt) effect their safety and happiness.' tSince 
it is impossible for the people sjiontaucously and universally to move into 
concert towards their ohject ; and it is therefore essential, that such changes 
be instituted by some informal and uiiautliovized propositions, made by some 
patriotic and respectable citizen or number of citizens. They must havo 
recollected that it was by tliis irregular and assumed i^rivilege of proposing 
to the people plans for tlieir safety and happiness, that the States were first 
united against the danger with which they were threatened by their ancient 
enemy ; that committees and congresses were formed for concentrating their 
efforts and defending their rights; and that conventions were elected in the 
several States for establishing the Constitution under which they are now 
governed." 

We have in one of the quotations just made, a declaration that the 
Federal Constitution "was to be considered less as absolutely new, 
than as the expansion of principles which are found in the Articles of 
Confederation." This language fully sustains all I have said: that, 
in fact, the first and elementary bond of the Union was a pledge of 
life, liberty and honor, in the Declaration of Independence ; and that 
the Articles of Confedei-ation and the Federal Constitution were but 
an expansion or enlargement of the primitive and supreme bond ex- 
isting by virtue of the Declaration of Independence, and that to the 
latter our constitution of government, State and Federal, arc indebted 
for their existence. 

The passage just quoted, in which he says "they must have reflect- 
ed, that in all gi-eat changes of established governments, forms ought 
to give way to substance ; that a rigid adherence in such cases to the 
former, would render nugatory and nominal, the transcendent and 
precious right of the people 'to abolish or alter their governments as 
to them shall seem most likely to cflcct their safety and happiness.'" 
The expression marked as quoted in this commentary, is taken from 
the Declaration of Independence, and the whole commentary is des- 
criptive of a revolutionary right. It is particularly described when it 
is said to be right and legitimate to exercise this transcendent right to 
overthrow established govcrnuients. Such a right was exercised by 
6 



42 

the Colonies in the adoption of the Declaration of Independence and 
in all tbe measures adopted to liberate us from the tyranny and usur- 
pations of the mother country. The exercise of such a right had its 
origin in necessity and I do not know that I might not with great pro- 
priety say the Colonies were under such a necessity up to the period 
when the Federal Constitution was adopted, and the States thereby 
became members to a constitutional compact and the government was 
for the first time clothed with sufficient power to sustain in itself. 

It does seem to me that this proposition ought to be considered as 
clear, — that the old Congress, whether acting under the original and 
primary bond created by the adoption of the Declaration, or under and 
by force of the same bond when expanded and enlarged by the adop- 
tion of the Articles of Confederation, had an undoubted and plenary 
right to select the mode by which such an enlargement should be 
effected as would render it capable of self-preservation. A proof of 
its truth is to be found in the fact, that but a single act was used to 
adopt the Declaration of Independence, then the Articles of Confede- 
ration, and finally the Federal Constitution. Those who adopted 
these measures, must have best known the work in which they were 
engaged ; and if in any change effected, it was necessary that the pro- 
cess prescribed in any State Constitution for alteration or amendment, 
whether by two successive acts or otherwise should be observed, those 
who framed our government ought best to have known. All the 
State Constitutions prescribe modes of alteration and amendment dif- 
ferent from the mere passage of one act, and that of our State distinct- 
ly require two successive acts. Yet we find both the Articles of Con- 
federation and the Federal Constitution adopted by one act. Not only 
the whole of the Articles of Confederation, but the amending article, 
which is in these words, was adopted by a single act: 

"Every State shall abide by the determinations of the United States in 
Congress assembled, on all questions, which by this confederation are sub- 
mitted to them, and the articles of this confederation shall be inviolably ob- 
served by every State, and the Union shall bo perpetual ; nor shall any 
alteration at any time hereafter be made, in any of them ; unless such alte- 
ration be agreed to in Congress of the United States and afterwards confirm- 
ed by the Legislature of every State." 

Yet at this very moment the Constitutions of the different States had 
different modes of alteration or amendment. Afterwards, the Federal 
Constitution, in compliance with the direction of Congress, acting 
under and by force of the Articles of Confederation, was adopted by 
(Conventions of the people of each State, called by a single act, not- 



43 

withstanding tlic fact that in all the State Constitutions there existed 
a circuitous mode of alteration or amendment. Thus wo find that 
through the entire progress of our Federal government, the old Con- 
gress always acted as if their power was the supreme power of the 
Union, and they had a primary right to prescribe their own mode of 
its alteration or amendment. 

The old Congress called the Federal Convention for the purpose of 
framing a Constitution, which, when framed, was transmitted to the 
Congress, and this latter body by a simple resolution, commanded the 
several State Legislatures to call Conventions of the people for the 
purpose of adopting it, as a substitute for the Articles of Confedera- 
tion. The command was obeyed, and still furnishes proof upon proof 
of the position I have assumed. And we find not only the members 
of the old Congress acknowledging the existence of such a supreme 
right in the Federal bond, by acting it out, but the Legislatures of 
all the States acquiesced in it, of which we have a conclusive proof in 
the adoption and present existence of our Federal government. 

I have thus briefly, and in general terms described the historical 
progress of our government up to the precedent I have already cited, 
when the Legislature of Maryland, by a simple resolution, called a 
Convention of the people without first changing the Constitution for 
that purpose. It will be seen from what has already been said, that 
the Federal Congress, through the agency of the State Legislature, 
called the Federal Convention, and that after the latter had framed 
and adopted a Constitution, the Federal Congress again, by a resolu- 
tion, directed the State Legislature to call Conventions of the peo- 
ple in order to adopt that Federal Constitution. In my humble judg- 
ment then, the call of the Convention in Maryland by a single act of 
the Legislature was perfectly legitimate. The Federal bond was the 
"supreme power" of the Union, to which our State Constitution was 
subject, and thence the supreme power had a right to prescribe the 
mode by which the State could adopt the Federal Constitution ; and a 
more triumphant proof of the legitimacy of the proceeding could not 
be asked than the fact of the precedent itself; for it is to be observed 
that the directions were given to the State Legislatures to call Con- 
ventions, without reference to the forms or provisions of their respec- 
tive Constitutions. 

I have already quoted the amending article of the Articles of Con- 
federation, which declares no alteration or amendment should be made 



44 

without tliG consent of tlio Legislature of every State; and the seventh 
article of the Federal Constitution declares the mode by which thak 
instrument was to be adopted, in these words : 

"The ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for 
the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the 
same." 

Our government consists of compacts. It is a system compacted 
together. That the adoption of the Federal Constitution in this man- 
ner was a departure from the mode prescribed in the Articles of Con- 
federation cannot be denied; and upon this as a precedent, on the 
present occasion, gentlemen arc disposed implicitly to rely. I once 
saw a dog run over himself, and I should not wonder if it shall be 
discovered, before this controversy is terminated, that those who now 
maintain the present doctrines by this precedent, have run over them- 
selves. 

On reference to this point, it is argued that in the adoption of tho 
Federal Coi^Vatutionj the amending article of the Articles of Confede- 
ration was violated, by substituting the ratification of nine States in 
its place. It is to be observed, as I have already said, the Federal 
Constitution was transmitted by the Federal Convention to the Gene- 
ral Congress, and that the latter tribunal, by a resolution, directed 
the State Legislatures to call Conventions of the people for its adop- 
tion. Was not the Federal Constitution an expansive alteration of 
the Articles of Confederation ; and did not the Legislatures of tho 
States, in calling Conventions, in obedience to the direction of Con- 
gress, as effectually give their assent to such expansive alteration as 
if they had directly adopted it themselves by this single act? They, 
by their call of the Convention, gave their sanction to it in addition 
to its adoption by the organ of a Convention of the people ; although 
all the States did not at the same time adopt the Federal Constitution, 
yet they all did so ultimately and its adoption thereby became unani- 
mous. 

The object of permitting nine States to adopt the Constitution, and 
thereby establishing it as a compact between the nine so ratifying it, 
was clearly to compel the other four to adopt the same course, because 
of their disability with safety and honor to remain out of the compact. 
13ut for an obvious reason it cannot be cited as an example for the call 
of a Convention under our government, State and Federal, contrary 
to the modes prescribed in their Constitutions. Our governments all 
now rest upon the force of compact, and all the parties to that compact 



45 

bave **a-n equality of rights."" It is a coTistitutional compact, by vir- 
tue of wbioh our government, State and Federal, exist; and that 
constitutional couipact possesses the force and attributes of law. To 
its violation a penalty is annexed : and thus the cases are made essen- 
tially different, because [the Articles of Confederation are declared to 
be a league of friendship and ■consequently could not be clothed with 
the obligatioQ of law, and no penalty could be annexed to their in- 
fraction. Tke Articles of Confederation origioated and rested in 
friendly consent and there existed a moral obligation to adhere to them, 
but to their infraction no penalty was annexed. I have already said 
that to the Federal bond, as the supreme power, we are indebted for 
<S)ur freedom and our Constitutions, State and Federal. The Federal 
bond, under the Declaratioa of Independence, and also under the ex- 
pansion of the latter, by virtue of the Articles of Confederation, ori- 
ginated from and rested in a supreme necessity — a necessity er|ual to 
self-preservation and freedom on the one hand, and tyranny and des- 
truction on the other — a necessity no less imperative prior to the 
adoptioiQ of the Federal Constitution, than that necessity which gave 
being to the Declaratien of Independence, and achieved and perfected 
that independence; for without the adoption of the Federal Constitu- 
tion, tke fruits of the Revolution would have been lost. In relation 
to this subject, I will again quote from Mr. Madison : 

"In one particular, it is admitted that the Convention have departed from 
the teaor of their commisson. Instead of reporting a plan requiring tlie 
confirtsiation oi all the States, they have reported a plan, which is to be con- 
firmed and may be carried into etiect by nine States only." 

It is worthy of remark, that this objection, though the most plausi- 
ble, has been the least urged in the publications which have swarmed 
against the Convention. This forbearance can only have proceeded 
from an irresistible conviction of the absurdity of subjecting the fate 
of twelve States to the perverseness or corruption of a thirteenth. 
Again he sajs, 

"Two questions of a very delicate nature present themselves on this 
occa&ion — 1st, On Avhat principle the Confederation, which stands in the 
solemn form of a compact among the States, can bo superseded without the 
unanimous consent of the parties to it. 2d. What relation is to subsist 
l>etwoen the nine States ratifying the Constitution and the remaining four 
who do not become parties to it. The first question is answered by recur- 
ring to the absolute necessity of the case ; to the great principle of self-pre- 
servation ; to the transcendent laws of nature and of nature's God, which 
declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objccls at which all 
political institutions aim and to which all such institutions must be sacri- 
tic^d." 



40 

The fact is, tlioy wlio cite the departure from the amending article 
of the Articles of Confederation, by the substitution of the ratification 
of nine States for unanimous consent, do not see in what extraordina- 
ry situation they have placed themselves. The precedent is in truth 
against them. It is admitted by those who framed the Federal Con- 
stitution, that its ratification by nine States, was not altogether a 
legitimate mode, and it is justified on the ground, first, of absolute 
necessity, and secondly that the Articles of Confederation formed only 
a friendly compact and were not clothed with the real attributes of 
law. Now, sir, unless the authors of this proposition to call a Con- 
vention by a single act, can show such a necessity now, as then 
existed, they are not justified in the course they have adopted. The 
departure from the legitimate mode just mentioned was made, because 
if it had not been done the Union would have been dissolved, and it 
is highly probable the liberties of the States would have been destroy- 
ed. Does any such necessity exist in this case? 

But, sir, those who cite the instance of the departure of the Federal 
Convention from the mode prescribed in the Articles of Confederation, 
and substituting for it the ratification of the Federal Constitution by 
nine States only, do not discover to what extraordinary consequences 
it would lead them. I have already said, Mr. Madison justified it 
on the ground of necessity — an imperative necessity — equal to self- 
preservation — equal to the value of the Union — the preservation of 
the liberties of the States, and the hope of liberty throughout the 
earth. But gentlemen do not see to what consequences their doctrines 
will lead. Nothing now endangers the existence of the Union, and 
if the action of nine States in the adoption of the Federal Constitution, 
could now be cited for authority, a majority of the people of the 
United States could go on and by a process contrary to the amending 
article of the Constitution, convert our Federal into a National gov- 
ernment, and entirely destroy the distinct existence of the States. 
The act of the ratification of the Federal Constitution by nine States, 
was founded on unavoidable necessity, and was regarded I presume 
as the only or most certain method of success, and had its origin in 
circumstances of great peril and difficulty. Times and circumstances 
have changed. Under our present government, we exist and act with 
the exercise of the largest liberty, are in a state of universal peace, 
and are in the enjoyment of universal prosperity. We are now great, 
happy and prosperous, and to attempt a change of the Federal Con- 



stitution, by au act of the majority, contrary to the mode prescribed 
in that instrument, would be extraordinary, and might justly be re- 
garded only an effort of tliat pragmatical and sightless propensity 
which seems the peculiar offspring of the wild spirit of the age. 

Our government is beautifully formed and ought at every hazard 
to be preserved, and we ought to be exceedingly cautious how we 
advocate measures which might engender seeds which would grow up 
to its destruction. The colonial government stood originally on the 
counties as so many social pillars. The Declaration of Independence 
threw down the colonial government and restored their materials to a 
state of nature. In the midst of these natural materials stood the 
bond of the Declaration of Independence as a pyramid with a base too 
narrow for its support. The natural materials then formed themselves 
into so many separate governments or State pyramids congregated 
about the great central one, the Declaration of Independence. This 
central pyramid however by experience was found to be incapable of 
sustaining itself by reason of the narrowness of its base, and because 
it had no arms projecting to the State pyramids by which it should 
be upheld and sustained. The base of this central pyramid was 
afterwards enlarged by the adoption of the Articles of Confederation 
and arms extended from it to rest upon the summits of the State 
pyramids. Yet still the base of this central pyramid is found to be 
too narrow and the summits of the State pyramids too weak for its 
support ; but being primary and elementary in its character, it has 
further enlarged its base, by the exercise of its own legitimate right, 
and extended its arms into the basis of the State pyramids, so as to 
become full of stability and security in the adoption of the Federal 
Constitution. 

I have said our government differs essentially from the English 
government. Ours may be said truly to be composed of the English 
language, and that of England is "an aggregate of law and usages 
which have been formed in the course of ages." I have said and 
shown that the English constitutional organization consists in the 
fundamental compact between king and people, as two contracting 
parties ; and now it becomes proper to show that our constitutional 
organization consists in a fundamental compact between the people 
themselves as the contracting parties. This constitutes a difference 
as distinct as two directly opposite principles. The first article of the 
Bill of Kights declares : ' 'That all government of rii//U orifiincUcs from 



4S 

the people, is founded in compact only, and instituted solely for the 
good of the ^vl)ole." Now, sir, the first member of this sentence de- 
clares "that all government originates of right from the people," and 
the word, originates, is here to be regarded as j?}'nonymous with: 
creates, and implies the relation of creature and creator. It might 
Iiave been expressed in these words, the people of right create all 
government, and the meaning would have been the same. This I 
apprehend will hardly be denied, and if it be true, can there be a 
fundamental contract between the creature and the creator? That 
power which creates must ever uncrate, is a rule that runs through 
all law, human and divine, and if so, here must exist a palpable 
difference from a fundamental compact where the contracting parties 
have each their original and equal rights. I think this needs no 
farther illustration, and I now proceed to explain the next member of 
the sentence — "is found in compact only.'^ I have already given the 
definition of compact, that it exists between independent parties. 
This definition shows there cannot be one between the governmenfe 
and the legislature and the people, because the first member of the 
sentence expressly declares that government originates from the 
people ; and how can that which is created be separate and indepen- 
dent character in reference to the creator having rights capable of 
being enforced ? It has always and ever must be conceded that the 
creator has the power to destroy the creature and that the latter exists 
alone by the consent of the former, and consetpently can»ot have 
any separate and independent rights. If the creatures of the Deitj 
were clothed with independent powers, so as to enter into a coDtracfc 
and be capable of enforcing their rights, usurpation would assuredly 
follow. Such was the case when the war arose in Heaven by the 
rebellious angels, and they, for their rebellious acts, were thrust out 
into outer darkness by the firey elements of truth. Such was the 
error committed by all the nations of antiquity, and hence the crea- 
ture gradually stole the powers of the creator until usurpation, and 
then destruction, followed; and the history of all the governments of 
that period tells the lamentable story. 

But, sir, our own Bill of llights gives the proper construction of this 
member of the sentence when it says, "that all persons invested with 
the Legislative or Executive powers of government are trustees of the 
public, and, as such, accountable for their conduct." In this last 
quotation the word government is used, and in the first member of 



40 

the first clause quoted from the liill of Eights, it is said all govern- 
ment of right originates from the people ; and the expression, account- 
able for their conduct as such, is totally at war with the idea of funda- 
mental compact between the government and people as contracting 
parties. The second article of the Bill of Rights of Virginia is still 
more explicit when it says, "that all power is vested in and conse- 
quently derived from the people ; that magistrates are their trustees 
and servants and at all times amenable to them." This illustrates 
what I have already said, that the bond which exists in this country 
between the magistrates and the people is a bond of service as con- 
tradistinguished from a fundamental compact. In our country the 
magistrates are elected or appointed, and if they were contracting 
parties with the people their rights would be hereditary; and the fact 
of election or appointment implies a service or agency contract. 

And now, sir, for the exposition of the third members of the sen- 
tence, "and instituted solely for the good of the whole." This sen- 
tence is founded in a mathematical axiom, that all the parts are equal 
to the whole and the whole is equal to all the parts. The fact is, sir, 
this axiom illustrates the true character of our government, for if it 
be instituted for the good of the whole, it must be equally so for the 
parts, and consequently the parts have the same rights with the 
whole ; that is, every citizen, as the parts, has the same rights with 
all the citizens and is entitled to the same good. This formation is 
of matchless beauty, indeed sublimity. The institution of govern- 
ment for the good of the whole is a legitimate and unavoidable con- 
sequence of the compact only, which gives equal rights to all the 
contracting parties and exclusive advantages to none. 

This brings us to another view of the question. The fourth article 
of the Bill of Rights declares "that all persons invested with the Legis- 
lative or Executive powers of government are the trustees of the pub- 
lic, and as such accountable for their conduct." This passage is 
expressive of the condition of the people and magistrates, in reference 
to the power of the one, character and accountability of the other ; but 
the succeeding part of the same section is expressive of a condition 
when the trustees had usurped powers beyond those entrusted to them 
and transcending their sphere of accountability, and perverting tho 
ends of government, had converted it into a despotism. It says, 
"therefore whenever the ends of government are perverted and the 
public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress 



60 

are ineffectual, the 2^<^ople may and of right ought to reform the old 
or establish a new government." The doctrine of non-resistance 
against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish and destruc- 
tive of the good and happiness of mankind. With a view to an accu- 
rate and intelligible exposition of this passage. I will quote from the 
Federal Constitution : 

"The Congress shall guarantee to every State in the Union a Republican 
form of government, protect each of them against invasion ; and, on appli- 
cation of the Legislature or of the Executive, (when the Legislature cannot 
be convened,) against domestic violence." 

The following is a portion of Mr. Madison's commentary on this 
passage : 

"In a Confederacy founded on Eepublican principles and composed of 
Repuhlican members, the superintendeuing government ought clearly to 
possess authority to defend the system against monarchical innovation. 
The more intimate the nature of such a union may be, the greater interest 
have the members in the political institutions of each other, and the greater 
right to insist that the forms of government under which the compact was 
entered into should be substantially maintained. At first it might seem not 
to square with the ricpublican theory, to suppose either that a majority 
have not the right or that a minority will have the force to subvert a gov- 
ernment ; and consequently, that the Federal interposition can never be 
required but when it would be improper. But theoretic reasoning in this 
as in most other cases must be qualified by the lessons of practice. Why 
may not illicit combinations, for purposes of violence, he formed as well by 
a majority of a State, especially a small State, as by a majority of a county 
or a district of the same State ? And if the authority of the State ought in 
the latter case to protect the local magistracy, ought not the Federal au- 
thority in the former to support the State authority ? Besides there are 
certain parts of the State Constitution which are so interwoven with the 
Federal Constitution, that a violent blow cannot be given to the one^ with- 
out communicating the wound to the other." 

It will be observed that the fourth section of the Bill of Rights just 
quoted, describes a condition when it is proper and right, and indeed 
the bounden duty of the people, to alter their old government or es- 
tablish a new ; and that condition is when the ends of government are 
perverted, and from that source, public liberty endangered. It de- 
clares that submission to despotism is slavish and destructive of the 
good and happiness of mankind. This is but a repetition of what 
was proclaimed by the Colonies by the Declaration of Independence, 
as descriptive of the usurpations and tyranny of the mother country ; 
and I might say it is but the description of the time when it is proper 
to exercise a revolutionary right. That right had just been exercised 
in throwing off the yoke of the mother country ; and it is well worthy 
of observation that this clause was inserted in the Bill of Rights but a 
few weeks after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence and 



51 

while tlie people of Maryland were esercisiug a revolutionary right. 
It does not form a delegation oF that right, but is a declaration, 
through their agents, of the people themselves when it was proper 
such a right should be exercised. 

That declaration is descriptire of solemn and valuable principles of 
government. The King of England, through the action of Parlia- 
ment, had assumed to himself the exercise of powers which did not 
properly belong to him as one of the parties to the fundamental com- 
pact between himself and the people of the Colonies. The Colonies 
were justified then in throwing off the government, because the King, 
one of the contracting parties, had violated the terms of the contract 
and consequently the other party was absolved from its obligations. 
So when the magistrates, the trustees, agents or servants in our 
country, have assumed the exercise of rights which belong to the 
people, their employer or creator, the contract of service is dissolved 
and the people can resort to the true principles of the fundamental 
compact between themselves, to eject their unfaithful servants, agents 
or trustees, and substitute others in their place. 

It is also to be observed, sir, that this provision was Inserted in the 
Bill of Rights prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. If 
then a majority, either directly or indirectly, through agents, usurp 
improper powers not warranted by the terms of the compact, or should 
produce an anarchy so as to impair or endanger the rights of the mi- 
nority, there would be no necessity for a resort in our country, to the 
exercise of the revolutionary right, but the interposition of the powers 
of the General Government can be commanded according to the pro- 
visions just quoted. This constitutes one of the most beautiful and 
salutary features of our system of government, that the clause just 
quoted attached itself for protection to every State Constitution, so as 
to prevent the necessity of a resort to violent means to throw off a 
despotism or indeed to prevent the occurrence of anarchy. It is also 
truly worthy of observation, that our government presents the first 
example of an effectual safeguard against the occurrence of the condi- 
tion of anarchy or despotism. It can hardly be supposed that all the 
States could be reduced to such a condition at once, and hence is an 
inexhaustible source of safety. 

It is also to be remarked as a solemn liistorical truth, that all gov- 
ernments which were of antiquity were subject to the unrestrained 
will of the majority, and from that source, or from the union of mi- 



52 

norities with external powers, were all the governments of antiquity 
overthrown ; because such an action has always produced anarchy, 
then despotism, and then destruction. It grew out of the fact, that 
all the States of antiquity were ignorant of that form of government 
which is founded in compact between the people themselves, by which 
the rights of every part was to be protected equally with the rights of 
the whole ; or rather the rights of every citizen, the parts, were to be 
protected equally with the rights of all the citizens, the whole. 
Among them, all the rights of the minority were subject to the abso- 
lute will of the majority, and hence not only the rights of the minori- 
ty but of the majority also were ultimately destroyed. If then the 
advocates of the doctrines, sought to be established on this floor should 
succeed, irrespective of the will and wishes of the minority, indeed 
of every citizen, as received by the terms of the compact, they will 
have re-established those very principles of government which have 
universally failed ; and so fully have they failed that there exists not 
now a vestige of the ancient governments of antiquity. Fortunately, 
under our form of government, by force of that provision of the Fed- 
eral Constitution which I have quoted, the majority, if they shall 
have proceeded too f-ir in a too great violence of action, against the 
terms of the compact, are as liable to be hanged as the minority ; and 
this constitutes the essential beauty and efficacy of our form of gov- 
ernment, which differs in this respect only from every other upon 
which God has yet smiled or frowned. 

The high authority from which I have just quoted, says there are 
cases in which the action of the States might violate some of the most 
important provisions of the Federal Constitution ; and with a view to 
show the wild and unrestrained will of the majority might effect this 
violation, I will again refer to one important provision of the Federal 
Constitution : "No State shall pass any bill of attainder, ex-post facto 
law ; or laws impairing the obligation of contracts ; or grant any title 
of nobility." It must be manifest to all, if the majority have a right 
to do as they please without regard to the terms of the compact be- 
tween all the citizens as contracting parties, of which the Constitution 
is the evidence, they could not be restrained by the clause just quoted. 
They would act at their on pleasure, and could not only impair the 
obligation of contracts but destroy every one in our State ; in fact all 
rights, natural or vested, whether of the person, or of property, 
personal and real, would be at their mercy. The authority would 



53 

laiow no liiuit short of an absolute autli-ority and tliat limit would be 
their own will and sense of justice, and at the mercy of that will and 
that sense of justice would the minority be placed. That the majori- 
ty can legitiaaately or constitutionally exercise their authority to alter, 
change or abolish our form of government, I do not deny, but our 
Constitution prescribes the mode. In the adoption of the mode pre- 
scribed by the Constitution, there is safety from various sources. 
First, the change must be published so as to inform the creator, the 
people, of the nature and extent of the change, — and secondly, the 
concurrence of a successive act of the Legislature, after an examina- 
tion of the nature and character of the change by the people would 
produce deliberation and caution, and consequently security to the 
rights of the minority even if that consisted of but one citizen. Thus, 
if the majority should attempt by two successive acts to disfranchise 
a citizen or deprive him of life, liberty or property, an opportunity 
would be furnished the whole people to know what was about to be 
done to the parts. But then there is another security to every citi- 
zen — the parts. If an act passes, which is arbitrary and unconstitu- 
tional, there is an appeal from it to the judicial tribunal, and that 
tribunal would interpret it and afford relief. But if the unrestrained 
will of the majority under the specious pretext that the inherent 
sovereignty can do as it pleases, is to be permitted to rule in all cases, 
not only the obligation of contracts would be impaired but broken at 
pleasure, and those safeguards thrown around the life, liberty and 
property of the citizen, would at one blow be prostrated. But, sir, 
if the doctrines now advocated, should prevail, with regard to the 
compact of Constitution by which the same rights are secured to the 
whole, it would perfect a return to that form of every government 
which has prevailed ever since the world began ; and that form of 
every government has universally proved a failure as is shown by tho 
history of all the nations of antiquity. 

But, sir, I will further illustrate my subject : the forty-secnnd ar- 
ticle of our Bill of Rights says, "that this declaration of rights, or 
the form of government to be established by this Convention, or any 
part of either of them, ought not to be altered, changed or abolished 
by the Legislature of this State, but in such manner as this Conven- 
tion shall prescribe and direct," and the fifty-ninth article of the Con- 
stitution says, "that this form of government, and the declaration of 
rights, and no part thereof, shall be altered, changed or abolished." 



54 

It is to be remarked tlie same expressions are used in the 42d article, 
and 59th article. In the first, it says that "this declaration of rights 
or the form of government," and in the second, "this form of govern- 
ment and declaration of rights," are not to be altered except in the 
mode prescribed. But it is said that this mode of alteration is con- 
fined to the Legislature, because the 42d article says, "ought not to 
be altered, changed or abolished by the Legislature of this State," 
and thus it is attempted to make the Legislature distinct from the peo- 
ple. Every man is liable to err ; but it does seem to me this idea 
grows out of a total misapprehension of the nature of our government. 
The author of the christian religion, as an agent, declared that he and 
his fiither were one, and they unquestionably were so, to the extent 
of the agency. So it is with our, indeed with all the American free 
governments. The Legislature consists of the trustees, agents or 
servants of the people, and no doctrine is more universally conceded 
than that the act of the agent is the act of the principal, to the extent 
>of the agency. 

Now I hold that whatever is done in this Legislature, whether in 
the passage of laws, or in altering, changing or abolishing the form 
of government or any part of the whole of the Bill of Bights, is done 
as though the people had acted in person. Any change wrought by 
this Legislature is wrought by the people, because we are the agents, 
and the act of the agent is the act of the principal. 

I will illustrate. Suppose five persons enter into a compact for the 
purpose of protection, and the good of the whole, and consequently 
the good of the parts — the whole including the parts. In such a case 
the "whole" firm would be entitled to the same rights with each — all 
being equal in rights and privileges. But when entering into the 
compact, they determine by a clause in the instrument, which is evi- 
dence of the compact, that no change shall be wrought but by two 
successive acts, at two successive meetings ; the act of the first sitting, 
is by the terms of the compact to lie over until the second sitting, in 
order that the whole five should have a full opportunity of examining 
its character. Now certainly the act of themselves would be the act 
of themselves ; and would there not be the same result if the five acted 
by themselves, and in either of these cases, whether acting in person 
or by agent, would then the majority of the five have a right to alter 
the terms of the compact contrary to the mode prescribed in the in- 
strument which has its terms ? Is not the same rule equally applica- 



55 

ble to this Legislature ? If a change is wrought fey the Legislaturev 
the agent of the people, the latter as effectually perform it as if it 
were done by them iu person. In the case of the five, if the majority 
had determined to alter the terms of the compact in a mode contrary 
to that which is expressed in the instrument which is its evidence, 
would it not be a violation of the rights of the minority of two, who 
have the same rights with the majority of three. 

The same mode of reasoning holds equally good with regard to one 
hundred. If our community had been composed of the latter number 
and consequently spread over a limited extent of territory, so that 
they could have met in person, there would have existed no necessity 
for such an agency as our Legislature. They would have met in 
person, and executed directly, what the Legislature indirectly, as an 
agent, now executes : and in this last case, the people through their 
agents, act as potentially and with the same responsibility as if they 
assembled and acted in person. The expression, "shall not be alter- 
ed by the Legislature," is the same as shall not be altered by the 
people through their agents. In fact the expression might have stood 
thus, this declaration of rights nor form of government, shall be alter- 
ed, changed or abolished, except by two successive acts of the agents 
of the people, met under the style of the Legislature — the act of the 
agent being the act of the principal. 

Our people are too numerous and spread over too great an extent 
of territory to act in person, and therefore, for convenience, what 
they cannot do in person they do by agents, yet it is done as though 
the citizens were assembled in person to alter, change or abolish. 
Our government is based upon the principle of granting the largest 
liberty to do the greatest good, not to the greatest number, but to the 
whole, and there is, or ought to be, no restraint except from doing 
evil. 

If then a majority of the people, by their own act, through their 
agents, should call a Convention, when there is no provision to au- 
thorize it, but another mode prescribed, they would as effectually 
violate the terms of the compact under which we live, as the majority 
of the five would have done directly in person, in changing the terms 
of the compact under which they lived, against the consent of the two, 
because under a compact each man has all the rights of the whole and 
the whole have all the rights of each man. It is a beautiful struc- 
ture of government, and the first of the kind that has appeared ; and 



5G 

liow Jestructive woulil it be if the authors of the present doctrines 
should prevail— destruction to not only aur own rights and liberties, 
but to human liberty throughout the earth, now and forever. 

In reply to the objection that the expression, "shall not be altered, 
changed or abolished" by the Lcjlslature of the State, does not refer 
to the people, I will offer a conclusive interrogatory. If the bill pass- 
es to call a Convention by a single vote, would not the Legislature 
have been the agent or instrument in calling the Convention, and 
would not the changes so effected have been so effected indirectly by 
the Legislature? The latter would not effect them directly but indi- 
rectly through the action of the Convention. Strange it can do indi- 
rectly and through another what it cannot do of itself. If this be not 
running OA'er ourselves, I confess I am at a loss to understand what is. 
The uncontrolled exercise of power, by the unrestrained loill of the 
majority, may at no distant day visit with bloody devastation one 
section of our Union. 

We have heard much talk, sir, about the incapacity of the inherent 
sovereignty to alienate itself. This is one of the instances in which 
pert loquacity is ever the swift messenger of deluded ignorance. To 
alienate the inherent sovereignty, it seems to me, might be to kill 
the man. It may be the return of the spirit to God who gave it, and 
of the body to the dust from whence it came. To alienate the inhe- 
rent sovereignty, it appears to me, might be au act of suicide. A 
ri<^ht which God has given to no man. It has been also said, that 
the inherent sovereignty cannot delegate itself. This is perhaps an- 
other expression among many others without sensible meaning. The 
inherent sovereignty consists of the man with his faculties of mind 
and body ; and a delegation of it consists in the simple appointment 
of agents to do for us that which we cannot do for ourselves. This 
delegation of the inherent sovereignty, or the appointment of agents 
by it, is what we witness in every transaction. A man does not eat 
■without the use of the knife and fork, and these little instruments of 
agency are found convenient and expeditious. A man does not plough 
his field without a delegation of his inherent sovereignty to his horse 
and his plough, and making these his agents to act out his purposes. 
So our citizens in voting, delegates to the inherent sovereignty 
through tickets and make them the agents of expressing their opinion. 
So in the adoption of our Constitution, the people delegated the inhe- 
rent soveriguty to the delegates in Convention, or appointed them 



tljC'ir agonts. ami the signature of the ilclogatcs to tlie Coustitution 
was the signature of the people themselves. In this aspect of tho 
case how erroneous is the expression quoted from John Randolph, 
"that the days of Lycurgus had gone by when the citizens swore to 
support the Constitution." Through the delegates in general assem- 
bly, every citizen, indeed every man, woman and child in our State, 
swears annually to support the Constitution, State and Federal, he- 
cause the delegates, as agents, swear for the principal, the people, on 
the rule that he who does an act, through the iustrumentallty of an- 
other, is himself the author. 

It has been said we cannot enter into a compact to bind our poste- 
rity. This is another senseless cry without meaning. If this were 
true, we should certainly not be bound by the obligations of our first 
parents to the Creator; and if this doctrine is correct what shall pro- 
tect our lives, our liberty and our property ? Few of those who lived 
at the adoption of our Constitution are now living ; and according to 
such a doctrine we are not bound by our present form of government, 
and consaquently no one is entitled to the right of trial by jury or the 
protection of law. In such a situation, who could be punished for 
murder or for the commission of any crime? No law now exists, if 
such doctrine be true, because our government has died with those 
who framed it. Such a doctrine is too absurd to argue, because all 
the citizens in our State are not born at the same time, so that you 
could never frame a government to meet the birth of every individual. 
If you should attempt to establish a governa\ent to meet this doctrine 
you must erect one at the birth of almost every child, for its protec- 
tion — all children not coming into the world at the same moment. 
The true construction of this doctrine is this, that you cannot bind by 
compact, persons not in being at tlie time the compact is entered 
into— that is, you cannot make a compact specifically to bind persons 
not in existence, because there is no contracting with or for nothing. 
Then we could not form a compact to bind those who shall come after 
us without its binding ourselves— so that tiie terms of the compact 
may go from ourselves to our offspring. If we attempt to bind those 
not in existence there is no one to take, and the contract falls to the 
ground. 

But, sir, there is one important clause in our State Constitution, 
to which the gentleman from Anne Arundel, (Mr. Joiixsox,) has 
referred. It is the conclusion of the fifty-ninth article, which pro- 
vides for the action of two-thirds to change the Constitution in refer- 
ence to the Eastern Shore. This is a distinct part of the compact, of 
which that r)Oth section is the evidence, and it was thus framed, 
S 



doubtless, because t!iat was the weaker sectiuu, and re<|uiref:l a more 
thau ordinary safeguard thrown around their interests, lie thinks, 
if the majority should proceed to extremity in the aotion of their un- 
controlled will, that section would resist, and I say they Would right- 
ly do so. If they should not they would ignobly desert that addi- 
tional protection, which all have agreed to and sworn to abide by ; 
nor would such resistence be rebellion, llebelliou is the act of the 
creature and not of the creator. Who could conceive of rebellion by 
God against his angels? No, the angels rebelled and for their rebellion 
Avere driven over the battlements of Heaven, by the tiery elements of 
truth, and hurled down into an unknown and bottomless region of con- 
fusion and despair. Yes, I say she should resist and she would rightly 
do so. The security of her rights by the concluding part of the o9th 
article, which requires the action of two-thirds of both branches of iho 
Legislature, is a part of the compact, and if it were broken by the ma- 
jority on the Western Shore or elsewhere, she would have u constitu- 
tional right to resist. That clause was inserted expressly for her pro- 
tection, because she is the weaker section, and for that reason her rights 
would be likely to be violated ; and to suppose that she — being in a 
minority, because the weaker section, could not lawfully, by vir'jue 
of the terms of compact of which that clause is the evidence — resist, 
is to charge the framers of our Constitution with idleness — with worse 
than idleness, in having engrafted such a clause in that instru- 
ment. 

A few words in conclusion. A bill has passed this body to change 
the sessions of the Legislature from annnal to biennial, and one of 
the reasons alleged for doing it is to rid ourselves of too much elec- 
tioneering. It seems to me this is a wrong remedy. There is one 
which is more simple and more effectual. In proportion to the num- 
ber engaged in any pursuit, whether of good or evil, M'ill be the 
extent of the consequences. Tims one man could drink until he had 
destroyed character first and life afterwards, but if he is alone the 
evil consequences would hardly be perceptible. Extend, however, 
the rounds of dissipation to one hundred and you increase the evil 
one hundred times ; and by the same process, by extending it to all 
the inhabitants of Maryland, you would destroy our State. On this 
principle divide your counties, cities and districts into as many dis- 
tricts as there are delegates. Thus, if my county, having three 
delegates, was divided into three election districts, and each voter 
and candidate was confined to his own district, it would diminish the 
amount of electioneering just two-thirds. So if Frederick county, 
which has five delegates, was divided into five election districts, and 
each candidate and voter was confined to his own particular district, 
you would diminish the amount of electioneering four-fifths; and thus 
you would by a simple process achieve what is sought to be accom- 
plished by the establishment of biennial sessions, which, under our 
Federal form of government, constitutes the initiatory step to the 
only process by which the liberties of our State can ever be de- 
strovcd. 



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